


The Cat Problem

by VyraFinn



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M, and some bad things happens, but at the end things will be alright, this story has happy ending but also dark themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2019-10-06 07:11:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17340929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VyraFinn/pseuds/VyraFinn
Summary: Once upon time, very long time ago, Denmark was cursed by a witch on her dying breath. Little the witch knew that it would take centuries for Denmark to reach “the moment he turns 25 years old”, so the Danish nation went on his merry way like nothing was wrong and forgot about the whole incident. Until one day the curse kicks in, turning Denmark into a cat. His family rush to find a way to turn the Dane back into himself, but they soon find out that one should not play with the curses and the way to fix things demands sacrifices.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note that although Denmark gets turned into a cat, it is not the neko-Denmark. This cat form will be a real, feral cat with cat's level of intelligence and skills. 
> 
> This story has darker themes than my stories normally, even if the plot seems to be light. However, the ending will be happy as usually. I wish to not spoil the plot, as surprises are the best during the reading experience, but if you are sensitive for certain topics feel free to send me PM on my tumblr blog and I will let you know more on what the plot includes so you can decide yourself if you are okay with reading this one. Otherwise, you can always wait until the story is complete which after I will publicly reveal more info on my blog.

“Yeah, I feel okay now”, Denmark laughed to the phone, trying to make the worried Norwegian feel more ease again, “I told you, it was nothing.”

“ _ You can’t call me about getting injured on way home and then say it was nothing _ ”, Norway replied dryly.

“I thought it was just a funny story”, the Dane said, “I flew like five meters.”

“ _ On your face on asphalt _ ”, Norway sighed,  _ “Dan, I love you too much to hear your ‘funny’ stories about your ‘funny’ accidents with a bike, and think that it was ‘funny’. _ ”

“Your voice makes kinda funny thing when you say word ‘funny’”, Denmark smirked and laughed when the reply was few rather unfriendly words in Norwegian, “okay, okay, I will be bit more selective about what I tell you, okay?”

“ _ I hoped more like you could at least sound serious _ ”, Norway said.

“But Sve agreed it was fun!”

“ _ Of course he did _ ”, Norway muttered, “ _ how was your day otherwise _ ?”

“Oh, it was just fine”, Denmark said happily and settled down on sofa, really hoping that Norway would be there and not just having a call with him, “I did some work, met some people, got home and so on.”

_ “That’s good.” _

“I miss you.”

_ “I was wondering when you were going to say that” _ , Norway replied,  _ “took you whole twenty minutes this time.” _

“I am so sorry”, Denmark said, “I should have said it first! I miss you, my light of life, most loved and…”

_ “I got it” _ , Norway said, sounding amused,  _ “I miss you too.” _

“You still coming over next week?” Denmark asked with hopeful tone and smiled when Norway let agreeing hum.

_ “Of course” _ , he said,  _ “it seems like you need me there to watch after you.” _

“Why can’t time go faster?”

_ “Isn’t Island going to visit you tomorrow?” _ Norway asked.

“Yeah”, Denmark nodded and yawned loudly before continuing, “he has stepover here after that Aasia meeting he went to. Said he will come to say hi on way home."

“ _ That’s nice _ ”, Norway said and then noted the yawning,  _ “are you really so old already you are ready to bed this yearly?” _

“Speak of yourself”, Denmark laughed and stretched his arms, “it has been long day. I am exhausted.”

_ “Or having concussion from that crash.” _

“It wasn’t that bad!”

“ _ Five meters fly _ ”, Norway snorted, “ _ not that bad. Of course _ .”

“I told you I am okay”, Denmark said and yawned again, “just so freaking exhausted. Been so whole day. I probably need a holiday or the company of certain lovely Norwegian I know…”

_ “That is better be me” _ , Norway replied and Denmark laughed.

“Of course it is you!” he said, “come quickly, my love.”

_ “As quickly as my work let me _ ”, Norway said and his tone softened for a while, “ _ I love you.” _

“And I love you”, Denmark said, “your day been good?” Norway started to explain his day and Denmark asked questions and added comments so the conversation kept going. It was quite normal for their evening calls to end up being several hours long, especially if it was a video call, so Denmark had no problems with getting up and starting to make dinner while still talking in phone. No matter how exhausted he was he wasn’t going to quit the call short. It didn’t even matter that he found it weirdly hard to focus on things and he kept dropping down everything he held.

_ “What was that? _ ” Norway asked when he head unmistakable sound of a plate breaking into pieces.

“I dropped a plate”, Denmark muttered, looking sadly at the pieces that had once been his favorite plate. 45 years together and now it had ended on his kitchen floor.

_ “You should go to bed” _ , Norway said,  _ “don’t stress yourself.” _

“Yeah, you might be right”, Denmark said and rubbed his eyes, “not really feeling like myself, honestly.”

_ “Are you catching a cold?” _

“Don’t think so”, Denmark shrugged, “my economy is doing very well. In fact, I think I have got bit more age on my body lately!”

_ “So you really are just becoming old” _ , Norway joked and Denmark laughed,  _ “very well, I will let you to get your rest. Get well, and I love you.” _

“I love you.”

_ “Tell Island my greetings” _ , Norway said,  _ “sleep well, love.” _

**** 

Iceland was feeling rather poor and grumpy when he arrived to Dane’s house. Mostly it was because of the jetlag and long travel he had done. For all the good things there were for being personification of a nation, living without jetlag after crossing half of the time zones wasn’t one of those. Also, Denmark hadn’t come to pick him up from the airport and although they had never talk about that, Denmark usually came anyway. There was no need to tell him to show up at airport or train station with small flags and wave them like a crazy and yell to his family so they would spot him, although they could do that just fine without yelling and flags. Nobody had ever asked him to do that. He just did it. 

Of course Iceland wasn’t going to say he had wanted to see Denmark right after landing, but he admitted that it would have been nice. By admitted, he meant he admitted it quietly to himself without saying a word out loud.

“Dan! I am here!” he yelled and opened the door with his own keys. For a while he thought Denmark wasn’t there because there was no reply. It was very strange to see the Dane’s house so quiet, usually there was at least some noise even if the Dane himself wasn’t being loud.

But Iceland knew Denmark was there. He could clearly feel the man’s presence, so the Icelander thought Denmark was playing games with him. As grumpy he was from the long trip, Iceland really didn’t feel like he wanted to play anything. The Dane would better quit the tricks right at the beginning or Iceland would have very strong talk with him.

“Quit it, Dane. I am not in mood”, the Icelander muttered angrily, leaving his suitcase in hall and following the sense of the presence. He was rather surprised when he didn’t meet Denmark in the room he swore the feeling was coming out from. Iceland frowned and walked around, but the feeling didn’t change. It was like Denmark had become invisible, but so far that Iceland knew Norway wasn’t visiting him. He would have expected such prank from those two, but Norway also knew better than bother tired and grumpy Iceland.

“Dan?” Iceland asked, getting really worried when the house stayed quiet. It was just a small voice, like soft brush of fur against cloth that took his attention and Iceland turned to look just in time to see a small cat standing against wall. Once the cat realized it had been spotted, it hissed and backed into corner. Iceland stared at it, the bad feeling inside getting stronger. He fumbled with his phone, keeping his eyes on the cat and missing the right button twice before he managed to get the call right.

“Nore”, he said angrily when the Norwegian picked up the phone, “what the hell have you done to Danmark?”


	2. Chapter 2

“I told you already several times”, Norway muttered when he walked to Denmark’s house with Iceland beside him, “I have done nothing.”

“Explain then why Denmark has disappeared and there is a cat who really seems to be him”, Iceland said with slightly pissed off tone. Once he had called the Norwegian, he had cancelled his flight back to home and waited for Norway to come to explain things in person. It hadn’t took the Norwegian for long to arrive, just few hours.

“I will once I have seen this”, Norway said, “why are you even blaming me? There is no way I would do anything to Danmark. I love him, gods’ sake!”

“It wouldn’t be the first time you magic him”, Iceland replied, “it was just few years ago you put a muting spell on him for few days, and back in 60s you turned him into a merman, and…”

“For the last time”, Norway sighed, “the muting spell didn’t hurt him at all, and what comes to that merman case and few others you probably thinking about, he asked for it himself. I would never actually hurt him.”

“How about that time he ended up going on for weeks as a woman because you put an illusion on him?”

“That too was his own idea and I should not be hold to account for his mistakes”, Norway muttered and opened the door, “how you even know this cat is Dan? He could be very well tricking us and laughing his ass off at this very moment.”

“I know how his presence feels like and I know him”, Iceland said dryly and showing the way to the room he had managed to trap the cat into, “the cat is him. I don’t know how or why, but Dan has been turned into a cat.”

“We will see about that”, Norway muttered. He still sounded disbelieving, but when he spotted the small, gray cat sitting on the bed, he frowned. The cat run and hid away right when he saw the nations, and they could hear a warning hiss coming from under the bed. It all happened fast,  but Norway had already seen enough. He didn’t look bothered or annoyed anymore. More so he looked worried and confused.

“See?” Iceland asked, crossing his arms over his chest, “what you did?”

“Right, so Danmark is a cat”, Norway said slowly, eyeing the spot where the cat had dived under the bed, “but I have nothing to do with this.”

“Who else could have done this then?”

“I am not the only person with magic”, Norway replied and walked into the room, “I will need to take a closer look.” 

“Careful”, Iceland said when he saw what the Norwegian was going to do, “I think he is wild. He hissed at me earlier.”

“It is just Dan…” Norway muttered and kneeled down so he could get the cat. He had to lay down to reach under the narrow place and it was very clear that the cat didn’t like the whole thing at all. The closer Norway’s hand came, the louder the animal hissed and backed away. 

“You stupid Dane, just get here…”, the Norwegian muttered angrily, quickly losing his temper because of the difficulties and that he was been blamed for things he had nothing to do with. It also had lot to do with the fact that Denmark wasn’t there as a person. The Dane happened to have much greater role on Norway’s mood than anybody knew or Norway was ready to admit. The cat however seemed to not care at all about the Norwegian man’s feelings or mood, and only focused on staying far away. Too bad, there was only so much bed left and soon Norway had managed to drove the furious, hissing cat into corner. 

Iceland hadn’t said anything or attempted to help Norway. He had already tried to approach the cat once and it hadn’t worked. It seemed that the cat, who was also Denmark but Iceland had already started to call it just a cat, didn’t even recognize his name. Still, Iceland was sure it was Denmark. Somehow at least, even if he had no idea how and what had happened. There was no way anybody could fool the feeling of personification’s presence and even then and right there Iceland felt like Denmark was standing in that very same room with them.

Iceland startled when Norway suddenly moved away from the bed and cursed. There were blood on the man’s arms, and four thin, long cuts quickly fading into white scars. The pain was nothing, but still the Norwegian looked shocked and almost like he was hurt in other way. Iceland frowned and stepped closer.

“Did he…?”

“He scratched me”, Norway said with so empty tone that Iceland felt quick brush of fear. He had never heard that tone before, but he already knew it promised nothing good.

“I told you, he…”

“He doesn’t know me”, Norway cut him off, but seemed to be talking mostly just himself while holding the bloodied arm up on his chest, “there is no way… He doesn’t know who I am.”

“He is a cat now so…”

“No, you don’t understand”, Norway said quickly, his scared look quickly replaced by anger, “the one who did this did not only change Dan’s appearance. They changed his whole mind, forced it to take another form. Mauling, brutally attacking and destroying the very being of him. That is darkest and cruelest magic I know, and the one who did this will see their deepest nightmares to come true for years to come until the end of the time itself and beyond. I swear that.” Iceland didn’t know what to say, so he only nodded. The cat under the bed was quiet, scared and angry, without any traces of its’ old mind or memories left. 

***** 

“You can fix this”, Iceland said quietly, sitting on couch but not really relaxing, “right?”

“Of course”, Norway muttered back. It had been few hours since they had tried to take the closer look of the cat, and so far no improvements had happened. Norway had been mostly just pacing around, either thinking ways to get Denmark back or planning the horrors he was going to release on the culprit who was behind this all. He was angry, Iceland could see that easily, but he didn’t seem to be too worried and so the Icelander didn’t went into panic mode either. He trusted on his brother a lot, and honestly, who else could be the one dealing with magic problems?

“So?” Iceland asked carefully. He hadn’t been sure what to do with the cat, but he knew well that all the animal’s had some basic needed to be fulfilled so they would continue being alive. It wasn’t sure if Denmark’s immortality was still there, so Iceland had took extra care and had a careful googling session to make sure he left only edible and suitable for cats food in the room. He had also checked twice that the window and door were closed. He didn’t even want to think about what would happen if the cat escaped from them. 

“So”, Norway said, rubbing his eyes, “first we need to get him out from there and tamed so I can take a closer look.”

“Can’t you just…”, Iceland waved his hand, “do magic?”

“Absolutely no”, Norway replied, “he is full of unknown magic right now, and it is something very strong. Even a smallest spell around him could have horrifying results.”

“Oh, okay”, Iceland muttered, “that is not good.”

“I called Sverige and told him to get down here with a big enough trap to catch a small sized cat alive.”

“You just called him, told that, and expect him to show up with a trap without asking more questions?” Iceland asked.

“Of course”, Norway said, “he is Sverige. He does what I say without questions. We will tell them all once they are here.”

****** 

“What have you done?” Sweden asked first when he got in the Dane’s house, Finland trailing in after him. Norway took a deep breath, already on his stress limits because of the whole situation, and forced himself to stay calm.

“I have done nothing”, he said.

“Where is Danmark?” the Swede asked then, placing down the cat trap he had brought with him. Finland had already went further inside, looking for Iceland he knew was nearby. 

“In his room”, Norway said and continued when the Swede didn’t stop glaring at him, “I haven’t done anything.”

“What the hell you have done?” Finland asked just then, and skipped back to the hall with an angry look on his face, “are you into bestiality or what?”

“No”, Norway sighed, “I am not into bestiality and I have done nothing.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you then?” Finland asked. Norway looked like he was experiencing that one moment he never wanted to experience, but instead of replying to the Finn, he glanced at his brother who had also showed up.

“Island, what did you tell him?”

“I only said Dan is now a cat and he made his own conclusions from that”, Iceland said, ”not my fault.” Sweden turned to glare at Norway again, clearly not getting any happier.

“You turned him into a cat?” he asked.

“Yeah, why the fuck you did that?”

“I haven’t done anything”, Norway repeated once again, resisting the need to rub his head in hopes it would stop the coming headache, “why in the hell’s name you all are blaming me? I would never do anything to Dan!”

“You have done before”, Sweden pointed out.

“Only because it was all his damn idea every time!” Norway yelled and took a shaky breath to calm himself back down, “I love him okay? I love him more than anything and I would never force his body or mind to take another form! Nor would I turn him into  _ a damn cat _ .” The Norwegian was angry, his already unbalanced mood ready to go to the extreme, and Denmark wasn’t there so he was fast getting really furious. Other Nordics shared looks, shrugging one by one after they finished their thoughts.

“He got the point”, Iceland said, “Nore would turn Dan into a puppy, not a cat.”

“Yeah, true.”

“Well, thank you”, Norwegian almost hissed, “can we focus on the problem here. I will have to have the Dane captured into that cage so I can figure out how to turn him back to normal and also find out who I will have to punish for this.”

“That is something I definitely never thought I would hear”, Finland noted while Sweden nodded for agreement and picked up the cage they had brought with them. 

“I will get this ready”, he muttered and started to make his way to the Dane’s bedroom, clearly trying his best to not think about using a cage trap to get Denmark captured. 

“Be careful. His mind is wild and he might attack”, Norway said.

“Dan attacking Sve is not really anything new”, Iceland muttered, “he should be able to handle this just fine.” Norway gave his brother a bad look, but didn’t comment anything. Instead he glanced at the Finn and hold up his hand for warning.

“You keep your mouth shut”, he said just when Finland was going to said something, “you already blamed me for bestiality. I don’t want to hear a word from you until Danmark is back.”

“Rude”, Finland said, but decided to not push his luck too much.

“You kind of deserved that one”, Iceland shrugged. Norway had got enough of his family for that day so he stormed away without checking what the others were going to do, and focused on his new favorite hobby of planning how he would punish the one who had dared to hurt his Dane. 


	3. Chapter 3

“How long you think it will take?” Iceland asked when they all just sat quietly in one of the many rooms Denmark had designed as living room. Nobody really knew which room in the Dane’s mansion was actually the living room so they just picked up one that looked like it was that. They were all in bad mood and the Norwegian’s angry, impatient behaviour increased the depressing feeling in the room.

“Don’t know”, Sweden said, “a while.” They were all just sitting and waiting. Finland was for once doing just as he had been told to do and hadn’t said a word since Norway had told him to shut up. Iceland wasn’t sure if it was because he actually worried on what would happen if he spoke up or if he was just feeling like being nice to Norway was overall a good idea. Sweden was quiet as usual, and Norway was just writing something and muttering to himself. Iceland had sneaked closer once to figure out what his brother was actually doing, but he had backed away quickly after the things Norway was saying and writing down started to sound bit too vulgar and bloody for his taste. Iceland wasn’t sure how Sweden managed to sit right next to the Norwegian with such a neutral expression on his face, but he guessed the Swede had bit more experience on Norway’s angry side from their younger days or he just didn’t care at all.

“I hope it will not take for too long”, Iceland muttered mostly to himself and settled back to quiet, depressing waiting. The dinner time had passed too, but so far nobody had mentioned it and it started to look like they weren’t going to eat or do anything any time soon.

The time passed and Iceland had started to count the clock’s ticking for just to have something to do, Norway was still deep in his murderous thoughts, and Finland and Sweden just leaned on each other. It was already late night when they heard a loud howl from the Dane’s bedroom. The angry noise was enough to startle everybody else but Norway, who only looked up like that was the most normal thing to happen.

“I guess the trap worked”, he muttered, “wonderful.”

“I will get him”, Sweden said and got up. The depressing silence in the room continued until the Swede came back, carrying the cage with him. He was trying to be as careful and gentle as possible, but few scratches on his hands showed that he had already made mistake of keeping his hands too close. He held the cage away from his body to minimize the cat’s success rate of getting the revenge, and gently placed it on the table. Norway’s focus immediately moved on the cat and he sat down on the floor, his eyes perfectly on level with the cage.

The grey cat paced around in the small space, clearly angry and looking for the way out. He was scared too, the fur standing up in desperate try to look bigger and chase away the four personifications staring at it. The cat’s attempts were in vain as none in the room felt threatened or looked away. Actually, they used the change to observe the cat better, and soon the animal settled to stay still and quietly hiss now and then just to remind them that he hadn’t given up. He was just waiting for the first one to make the mistake to come too close.

“He really looks just like a normal cat”, Finland said with a small tone of wonder in his voice when he walked around the table, “and feels like Dan… If I close my eyes I could swear he is right there, but still I see just a cat.”

“Yeah, I told you”, Iceland muttered.

“Can’t really believe things like this until you see yourself”, the Finn replied with a shrug. Sweden and Norway were both quiet, the Norwegian staring at the cat and the Swede keeping the Norwegian on eye.

“I thought he would look more… Dan”, Finland said.

“What you meant?”

“Like, that it would be just a cat version of him”, Finland shrugged, “there would be some clear traits or characteristics or something…”

“Like a white cross on him?” Iceland asked bit sarcastically, “like that pig they bred?”

“Yeah, or you know... the hair”, Finland said and gestured around his head to show what he meant even thought such gesture was completely unnecessary.

“That is not how magic works”, Iceland said, sounding like the Finns words were totally absurd and he couldn’t even imagine where the man had got that idea in his head.

“Okay”, Finland muttered and shrugged, “I think I haven’t even seen Nor doing magic before. I mean, seeing him actually doing it. I have seen the results many times. When he is going to start?”

“He is doing it already”, Iceland said. Finland frowned and glanced at the Norwegian who seemed to do nothing but sitting on floor and staring at a cat in cage. The cat had settled down, not calmed but waiting still what would happen next and clearly thinking the Norwegian was the biggest threat in the room.

“Really? But he is doing nothing.”

“He doesn’t need to do anything. Magic is all in mind”, Iceland explained and tapped his head, “he is just focusing like you know, thinking.”

“We should maybe be quiet then”, Finland muttered, slightly surprised that Norway hadn’t yet yelled at them and seemed to be able to hold his focus.

“It is okay”, Iceland said, “he muted us off right at the moment he saw you opening your mouth and starting to talk nonsense. We could be yelling all we can and he wouldn’t hear a word.”

“Oh, that is handy!” Finland said, clearly not bothered at all that he had just learned the Norwegian had used the radical ways to ignore him more efficiently.

“Yeah”, Iceland said, “annoying too.” Finland looked like he really wanted to know more about what Iceland had done to experience the magical muting and how exactly that was annoying, but just then Norway cursed loudly with a language only Sweden understood, and Denmark would have if he didn’t happen to be a cat right then.

“...When I get my hands on that bastard…”, Norway said, finally switching into modern speech after Sweden only had had the honour to listen his creative choice of words for good few minutes.

“Something wrong?” Iceland asked, the worry sneaking back into his voice. He glanced at the cat, who still was very cat alike and seemed to not recognize anything going around.

“This spell is way too powerful”, the Norwegian admitted, “and not a spell at all. It is a curse.”

“Who would want to curse Dan?” Finland asked with a frown, “like he wasn’t nice guy always, but it has been centuries since and everybody likes him now.” Norway didn’t reply and seemed to ignore the Finn completely. He massaged his head, trying to collect his thoughts and keep things together while everyone in the room stared at him, worried and expecting him to do something to save the day.

“First we should figure out who in hell would even want to curse him”, Norway muttered, “he doesn’t have any enemies. Not during these days and it has been so long time since we did all the things. Nobody would wait this long for a revenge.”

“Could it be an old curse?” Finland asked, “something that just… activated now? Is that possible?” Norway didn’t react at all, but Iceland frowned.

“Nore”, he said, “you forgot to unmute Fin.”

“Did I?” Norway asked, sounding not surprised at all and getting rather bad look from Sweden for that. In any other situation, the Norwegian would have ended up in fight after that stunt, but right then everybody understood why he was acting like he was standing on edge all the time and just one step from falling.

“Yeah”, Iceland said, “and I think you should listen to him. He might have an idea.”

“Right”, Norway muttered, but gave up, “what did you said?”

“Could it be an old curse that just happened to activate now?” Finland repeated.

“It is possible”, Norway shrugged, “but I wish that is not the case. Curses are hard to break and the best way to do so is to hunt down the caster and make them regret every single thought they ever had about cursing anybody. If it is an old curse, the caster could have been long dead. Dan is well over thousand years old after all.”

“Curse could work even when the caster is dead?”

“Yes”, Norway said, sounding impatient and annoyed of all the questions, “but we should focus on thinking who could have done this. I will need a list of all the possible magic users and anybody that has been…”

“...Norge?” Sweden suddenly said, sounding worried. He had been quiet and just thought about their problem, trying to recall any possible memory that could explain things. It was the Finn’s questions and Norway’s answer that made him finally remember.

“...near Dan during the past months and…”

“Norge, I…”

“...I can try to track the curse but it will take some time, so it is best that you also set on work in case…”

“Norge.”

“What?” Norway said sharply and turned to glare at the Swede who had dared to interrupt his planning. Sweden replied to that stare calmly and took a deep breath.

“I know who cursed Dan”, he said. Norway stared at him for a moment longer, but then took quick steps closer, almost looking like he was threatening to attack the Swede.

“You tell me everything”, he hissed, “now.”

“It was when we were all young”, Sweden started, keeping his voice calm even when Norway was getting angrier, “long time ago, maybe somewhere in 8th century. It was one of the first raids we went to. Dan was excited, didn’t think much. We followed the group, ended up burning a town down. I told Dan to keep it down and not make too much attention on us. That’s why we were following after the main group and not doing so much. Arrived into already burnt town. Dan got bit proud. Spoke about his people and his raids like it was all just his achievements. Somebody heard.”

“No”, Norway said, suddenly getting pale and taking a hold on Sweden’s arm, either to stop the man saying what he already guessed what was going or trying to get something to lean on when the truth hit him, “not that…”

“Dying woman”, Sweden continued, “heard what Dan said. Blamed him. I didn’t heard what she said, but she was a witch. Dan laughed at her, made her angry, and then she died.”

“That idiot!” Norway yelled, “why in hell… I warned him. I told him to never mess with these things!”

“What is it?” Iceland asked.

“It is the worst case scenario I could even imagine”, Norway said, “not only the Dane got himself cursed, he got cursed by witch’s death wish.”

*****

“What exactly is a witch’s death wish?” Finland asked when they had all calmed down a bit, and Iceland had fed the cat who still seemed to be very angry at all of them, but still comfortable enough to eat. Sweden had helped him and earned few more scratches that way.

“When a witch dies”, Norway started with a sigh and nursed the unlabeled bottle of alcohol he had found and wasn’t going to share with anybody, “it is possible that all their magic and whatever is left of their life energy goes into the last spell, or in this case a curse, at the moment of their death.”

“Like adrenaline or some kind of dying shock?”

“Very roughly said, yes”, Norway nodded, “this used to be common thing back when humans still had better contact with magic, but even nowadays it happens.” He took another sip, frowning at the taste but still eager to get his mind at least bit blurry for a short moment. He was starting to get successful with that task, and his family was suspecting that whatever he was drinking it had to be something very strong.

“But you can fix Dan, right?” Iceland asked.

“Of course I can”, Norway replied, “it will just be quite difficult.” His family seemed to be satisfied with that reply and they all relaxed, believing that soon everything would be good again and the Dane just as annoying as always in his normal form and mind. If they noticed how much Norway’s hands were shaking or how he avoided looking at the captured cat, they only thought it was effects of the alcohol and missing the Dane. None of them dared to ask or think why exactly Norway had fetched the bottle and Norway hadn’t given any explanations. It was better to keep thinking things were going to be just normal in few hours or so.

“But why cat?” Finland asked out loud.

“Wondered same”, Sweden muttered, but Norway sighed and took a deep breath before he dared to say his thoughts out loud.

“Do you remember what we did with cats back then, Sverige?” he asked, tapping his fingers again the glass, “and what kind of cat he exactly looks like now?” Sweden frowned, glancing at the cat and back at Norway few times before the realization hit him.

“Are you saying…?” he asked, not wanting to really ask it.

“Yes”, Norway muttered darkly, “a cruel revenge she wanted.”

“What? I am not following”, Finland said and Iceland beside him looked just as confused and slightly worried about how horrified the Swede looked. It took a lot to get any impressions out of Swede, lastly that one.

“There were two kind of cats during that age”, Norway explained, taking a long sip and spilling some on his shirt before he continued, “mousers and food. The type Dan is now is the later.” they could easily see the moment when Finland and Iceland realized what was going on as they both suddenly looked shocked and sick.

“You mean…”, Iceland said and took a breath, “she cursed Dan to be a cat so… somebody would eat him?”

“Seems so.”

“That is horrible”, Finland said, “sure he is like a cat now but he is still… he.”

“That was the revenge she wanted”, Norway said, his voice starting to get unclear, “to be honest, her whole life had just been destroyed. Everybody she knew had been killed and she had been left laying there, who knows what happened before Dan and Sve walked by, and then she hears somebody bragging about it. Sure she did the cruelest thing she could just think up right then. Good for Dan, the curse waited all these centuries and we got to him right away.”

“I…”, Iceland said, looking very sick and pale, “I need a moment.” He quickly left the room, holding his hand over his mouth and hurrying up. He wasn’t the only one who wanted to do that, but Norway was quickly getting drunk, Sweden didn’t dare to leave drunk Norwegian alone in that state of mind, and Finland was too stubborn to give up for nausea.

“Why it took so long?” Finland asked, “I am happy it didn’t happen sooner, but… She wanted her revenge right then, why to wait?”

“I can only guess”, Norway said, his eyes not focusing on anything anymore and the bottle getting emptier, “it could have been set to specific age. Dan mentioned few days ago that he thinks his body has actually ageing up again due to some recent improvement. I would guess that she meant the curse to hit at the moment Dan was same age she was when she died. After all, he looked like fourteen years old at that time, if I recall right. The curse took its’ time because by years lived Dan was already well over couple of human generations, but his body didn’t reach the right age until now. That sounds like the most logical explanation I can think up.”

“Yeah, it sounds so”, Finland muttered, quickly glancing at the cat who had calmed down enough to not yell at them all the time and even curl up to rest. They still didn’t dare to let the cat roam freely in fear they would never be able to catch him again or he would somehow get out and run away. They had still tried to make the cage more comfortable with soft blanket and water and food, but it didn’t make the idea of having Denmark locked up like that any easier.

“Damn…”, Norway muttered when he once again raised the bottle on his lips and got nothing, “the bottle is empty… Gotta get another…”

“I think you have had enough”, Sweden said, taking a hold of the Norwegian’s arm when he tried to stand up, “it is time to sleep.” Norway stared at the Swede, but he was clearly having difficult time with focusing his sight or keep balance.

“But I…”

“Nor”, Sweden said with a voice that was at the same time strong and incredibly soft, “go to sleep.”

“Fine”, Norway muttered after a short staring competition, “Swede.” He shrugged Sweden’s hand off him and got up, swaying slightly for keeping his balance. He was trying his best to make his way to the bedroom, but he still had to take lean from the walls and cursed every time he stumbled on something.

“Wait!” Finland said and got up after the Norwegian, “you should not be alone now, Nor, just…”

“Oh right. I forgot”, Norway muttered, turning back and almost falling over while doing that, “come here, Dan…”

“I didn’t mean that, actually”, Finland muttered, but Sweden shrugged and said it was okay. The cat moved farther into cage corner and gave warning hiss, when the drunk man approached and tried to take the cage with him. Norway really tried, but also found out his hands were not functioning like they should. After few failed tries he frowned and glanced at the Swede like it was all the man’s fault.

“Sve”, he said, trying to sound bossy but ending up somewhere between whining and desperate instead, “do something useful for once.” Sweden nodded and very carefully lifted the cage with one hand and using one to help Norway to stay up. Finland followed after them to check that Norway got safely into bed. The whole way to bedroom the Norwegian muttered angrily about Danes that went and got themselves cursed for stupid reasons and sometime it sounded like he was just speaking to Denmark. They helped him to undress and tugged him in bed, waiting that he was asleep for sure before leaving the room.

“You think he will be okay?” Finland whispered.

“Of course”, Sweden replied without asking who Finland meant, “we have been through worse. It will all be okay.”

“Good”, the Finn nodded, trusting on the Swede as he had done almost all his life.

“I will go to see Island”, Sweden said, “check that he is okay and tell to keep Nor on eye.”

“Do that”, Finland nodded, “I will go make a bed for us somewhere.”

“Good.”

“Sve?”

“Yeah?” The light in hallway was too dim to see the Finnish man’s expression, but Sweden knew he was worried. Finland only hold on him so tightly when he was worried.

“That witch didn’t curse you too?” he asked. Sweden shook his head.

“No. Just Dan”, he said, “don’t worry. My body is bit older than his. Would have turned already.”

“Oh right”, Finland sighed, feeling bad about being so relieved to hear that right then, “good, or, well. Not good, but at least we got only one cat problem in our hands.”

“Yeah”, Sweden said and gently caressed the Finn’s hand, “one problem is enough.”

“I have a feeling it could be more than one if we don’t take care of Nor”, Finland said, “I think he is not feeling so well he says he is feeling. There is something he is not letting us to know.”

“Yeah. He is like that”, Sweden agreed, “but we will take care of everything and Dan will be back soon.”

“I just hope nothing else will go wrong.”


	4. Chapter 4

The morning started with a quiet breakfast. The cat had settled in and somehow over night decided that the four weird men were not really a threat, and it was right then mostly just ignoring them. Norway had hangover or he was just in bad mood. Others were not sure and they didn’t dare to ask. Neither did they dared to speak, or had any will for it. They were all just eating quietly and avoiding to look at the cat cage Norway had put middle of the table.

They had already finished long time ago, but nobody wanted to get up or say anything. They just waited. Finally Norway broke the silence.

“We are going back to my land”, he said and didn’t made it a question.

“Why?” Sweden asked.

“Because I want Danmark back”, Norway grunted back and glared at the Swede, who only nodded.

“What are we going to tell Dan’s people?” Iceland asked and vaguely gestured toward the cat cage, “we can’t just say that their personification turned into a cat.”

  
“We tell them we have family problems”, Norway said, “big problems that will need all his attention for a long time.”

“Like having one family member turned into a cat?”

“Or a murder of Finn that couldn’t keep his mouth shut”, Norway lashed back.

“Norge”, Sweden glared at the Norwegian, but Finland only nodded.

“It is okay”, he said, “I went too far. I am sorry, Nor.”

“Whatever”, Norway said, “just get ready to leave in ten minutes.” Everybody nodded and did what the Norwegian said. In ten minutes they were all ready and on way back to Norway’s home, the cat being only one making voice. It didn’t really enjoy the car drive and made that opinion known for everybody. Even hours after they had arrived to Norway’s house, the cat kept hissing angrily and staring at them like trying to figure out whose fault the whole car drive had been.

Norway had went straight to his office after they arrived and nobody was going to bother him. Sometimes they heard him talk, but never so loud that they could hear what he was saying.

“You think he will soon find out a way to fix Dan?” Finland asked after they had been awkwardly sitting in the silence already for a while.

“Hopefully”, Iceland muttered and glanced at the cat, “you know… I actually feel really bad about keeping him caged like that.”

“Yeah”, Sweden nodded.

“Maybe we could let him out?” Iceland asked, “just in the house. He seemed to be okay when we gave him food.” None of them wanted to feed Denmark the stuff people called cat food, so they had compromised by first figuring out what cat could eat and then preparing a meal that could be acceptable for both, cats and humans. It had took them a while, but at least they didn’t feel bad and knew they were not going to accidentally kill the Dane by feeding him wrong.

“Is it sure he will not get out?” Finland asked worriedly, “are there mice here? What if he hunts and eats one?”

“I go check the house”, Sweden muttered and got up to see any possible places for the cat to sneak out.

“I have never seen a mouse here”, Iceland muttered and looked around like he was expecting to see some kind of confirmation for that, “but… should we do something before we let him roam free? Cat proof the house?”  
“I really don’t know”, Finland admitted, “I have never had a cat.”

“But you have a dog, right?”

“Yeah, but she is sentient and intelligent”, the Finn replied with a shrug, “like your puffin. Why you thought I leave her alone home for so long times? She got her own things to do.”

“I… I actually didn’t know that.”

“I guess very few do”, Finland said, “she has always been quite independent. Just like the island she represent.”

“She represent something?”

“Of course”, Finland replied and looked slightly confused about the question, “she is Åland. Isn’t Puffin representing anything?”

“Not so far that I know”, Iceland muttered with a shrug, “huh, I am pretty sure he is just a random bird who decided to tag along and developed intelligent capabilities.”

“That’s weird.”

“I have said this before, but you are an immortal personification of people of Finland, you are not allowed to say that something is weird.”

“That is very stupid rule”, Finland said and looked up when Sweden returned to the room, “all okay?”

“Seems so”, Sweden nodded, “we can let him out.”

“But are we really sure he will be okay”, Iceland asked.

“Well, there is only one way to find out”, Finland said after a brief silence and walked to the cat cage to open the door. When he stepped back the cat did absolutely nothing. Even after few minutes waiting and deep anxiety nothing happened. Finally Iceland glanced at the other two nations.

“Is this normal for cats?” he asked, “they like cages?”

“I guess”, Finland replied.

“Might be just Danmark”, Sweden muttered and sat down on the couch, “it is gonna be okay.” Iceland and Finland nodded and settled back down. They did their best to somehow pass the time, but there wasn’t much they could or wanted to do so mostly they just chatted in low voices and kept imagining the worst case scenarios. After some time, nobody knew how long because they didn’t have clocks, the cat got up and left the cage. It seemed to somehow know where it was going and didn’t care about three nations creeping behind. When the cat slipped into Norway’s office, the said three nations stopped and shared slightly worried looks when they realized they should have probably asked Norway before they set the cat loose in his home.

“Why is he out of the cage?” the Norwegian asked when he stepped out of the room, the cat rubbing against his legs.

“I…” Iceland started but Sweden cut him off.

“Not right to keep him in cage”, he said, “he is still Danmark.” Norway stared at him for a while, but then he nodded and turned to look at somewhere on their left side.

“This creature is to be protected at any cost”, he said to the empty air. The empty air seemed to give him agreeing reply, because Norway said nothing more and returned to the room. The cat followed after him.

“Okay”, Iceland said, “so that was okay. Should we go to sleep?”

“Yeah”, Finland muttered with a nod. They all knew already that Norway was not going to take help from them so offering wasn’t going to do anything, and all they could do was just to wait and hope. So that they did.

*****

Despite of the strange and worrying situation, they soon developed routines. First they all contacted their leaders and told the same excuse that they were having problems with family and would only answer for absolute necessary calls. With Denmark leaders they told them to contact them with email instead of calls so that one of them could pretend to be the Dane if that was needed. Surprisingly, nobody was against their announcements and they didn’t need to worry much about work top of everything else.

Norway was one leading the mission to get Denmark back. He spent all his time in the office, trying to figure out ways to undo the curse. Others couldn’t do much with that so they settled to take care that there was food on the table and Norway too got his rest. The later was easier to say than do because the Norwegian was stubborn when it came to his stamina and skills. If it would have been only him, he would have exhausted himself long time ago only because he refused to stop working. Few times Sweden had to drag him out the room and to the bed, listening the angry Norwegian cursing and only falling silent when Sweden reminded him that he could not help Denmark if he died first for exhaustion. Sometimes he only ate when Iceland nagged at him until he did eat.

The cat did what all the cats did and spent most of time doing nothing. It seemed to prefer Norway and often sat in the room when he worked, but despite of many tries, the cat didn’t give any signs of actually remembering his old self and how to be Denmark. He was just a normal cat, slowly accepting the people and house around himself.

The more time passed the more dangerous it became to actually interact with Norway. He could lash out about anything, get angry when something wasn’t where he wanted it to be, and yell if they said against him. Three others knew why he was like that, but they too were at their limits and there was only so much tiptoeing and yelling one could do and take. It all had to come out sooner or later.

One of the first biggest fight happened a bit over week after they had discovered the Dane in cat form. Sweden had went to shopping and returned with few bags full of food. When he was stepping inside the house, Iceland happened to be going out at the same time. They stopped briefly at the door to exchange few words and while they did that, the door stayed open. They didn’t notice the curious cat sneaking closer and giving excited look at all that world opening from the door. It had been spending lot of time sitting on the window sills but for the first time it got a chance to really go close to all that. Or it could have if Norway didn’t pick it up and started to yell at the two nations.

“Close that damn door!” he hissed angrily, startling them both, “he almost got out!”

“Okay”, Iceland said annoyed, “he wasn’t even close.”

“He was almost out!”

“We were going to close it, okay.”

“Didn’t fucking look like that”, Norway said, “he can die if he gets out so take fucking care…”

“I am just going out, He can’t be that fast.”

“He can. And you should take this seriously.”

“I am taking this seriously!”

“Hey, stop!”, Finland said and stepped in between them, “everybody, take a breath and calm down now.”

“I am just…”, Norway started, but the Finn wasn’t going to listen to that.

“Nor, are you sure you want to make Iceland upset?” he asked and pointed down at Norway’s arms, “and scare Dan?” Norway didn’t reply. He looked at Iceland and then the cat, which he let to jump down. Then he just shook his head once and went back to his office without another word.

Next few days after that Norway didn’t say or show up much. Sweden and Finland had to leave for couple of days, which they did hesitantly and only after Iceland swore everything would he okay while they took care of their things. It had been already over two weeks since Denmark had been himself last time, and the worry and stress started to show in all of them. The duties were mostly forgotten, house was not cleaned, meal times went by without anybody actually having a meal, and the time lost its’ meaning. Iceland thought sometimes that Norway looked like a living dead, and he wasn’t sure if he looked any better. The cat seemed to be the only one that was feeling okay, and it had even gained bit of healthy weight and seemed to be overall a happy cat. They hadn’t asked Norway about solutions for a while now, and Norway hadn’t talk about it with them.

One day Iceland was coming back from a walk he had dragged himself to in order to feel at least bit better. When he arrived to the house, he found that Norway had locked himself to the office once again. The cat was meowing and scratching the door outside, which was weird because usually Norway let him come in and sit in the room while he worked. The cat had took quite liking on the Norwegian and was clearly in distress about being forced to stay out.

“It is okay”, Iceland muttered when he stepped closer to open the door, “Nore? Are you here?” He didn’t get answer so he stepped further into room. The closed windows didn’t give him much light to see, so the first thing he realized was the smell. The whole room reeked like blood and something dead. The Icelander felt his panic rising and started to call his brother who still didn’t answer. While trying to get into room he pushed the light switch and suddenly saw more than he wanted.

The room was full of dead cats. Some of them still dripping blood, some looking like they had been dead for a while already. Iceland wanted to throw up and he did took two steps back before he realized he still hadn’t got reply from his brother. So he stepped back in, carefully avoiding to touch any of the dead animals or the blood and holding his hand over his nose and mouth to block the smell. He found his brother sitting in the back of the room, behind the table he had pushed on side. The man had one of the dead cat’s on his lap and he was slowly stroking its’ orange hair. He seemed to not be fully in the real world anymore, and the only living cat in the room was sitting next to him and pushing his head against the man’s arm. It seemed to not care about all the dead ones around.

“Nore?” Iceland whispered, “what have you done?” This time Norway reacted and looked up.

“This was the last one”, he said too calmly and quietly, “the last one.”

“Nore, why?”

“Necessary sacrifices”, Norway replied like he had repeated that to himself few times, “all in vain.”

“Nore, come”, Iceland asked, reaching for his brother. He wanted them to get out of the room and he wanted somebody to fix everything. He had thought Norway was going to do that, but now he saw only a man sliding to the wrong side of madness.

“Right”, Norway replied and very carefully and gently placed the dead cat on the floor before he got up. He let the Icelander to guide him to shower, to change his clothes and put him into bed. Then he fell asleep with the living cat purring on his chest. During all that Iceland couldn’t get his mind of the all the dead cats or forget the smell. He called Sweden once Norway had fell asleep and begged him and Finland to return right away. They agreed and just few hours after Iceland’s horrifying finds, all the cats were buried in the backyard, the blood cleaned and the door to office locked. The key they hid so Norway couldn’t find it. Not that they needed because once Norway woke up after sleeping half of the day, he didn’t want to go there. Nobody mentioned the cats.

The next few days were, if possible, even more awkward and stressful than the previous days had been. Norway woke up and seemed to be physically alright, but he didn’t talk or did anything more than sat in living room petting the cat. That made others to worry about his mental health, although the Norwegian still looked sharp and in any other situation they would have assumed he was simply thinking something very thoroughly. Sometimes he got up and disappeared to the forest for a while, but he always came back in hour or so, so they didn’t worry too much.

They didn’t ask him if he was going to fix Denmark. It was already quite clear that Norway hadn’t been able to figure things out. Quietly they started to ask around, reach to other personifications for advice and to see if they had once faced similar problems. But all their questions came back with no answers and only well wishes and sympathy accompanied.

“Could you all come to living room?” Norway asked one day, finally breaking the silence. Iceland was so startled of that he dropped a plate which broke into pieces. The reactions for that were mild because they had been dropping lot of things from their hands lately due to the stress and mental pressure.

“Of course”, Finland replied and they all left what they had been doing to gather into living room. The cat was already there, laying on the backrest of the couch. They sat down, leaving the closest spot to the cat for Norway, but he decided to stay up.

“I would not ask this if there was any other choices”, Norway started calmly, sounding slightly off like he really wasn’t feeling any emotions, “but there is not.”

“What are you speaking about?” Iceland asked, alarmed by the Norwegian’s tone and expression. He had been constantly on his toes lately, threw off by having one of his old guardians cursed into a cat and another one slowly losing his mind over it. It was only because Sweden and Finland’s support that had kept the Icelander from following after Norway.

“We need Danmark back”, Norway said, “I need him back. I have tried everything else.”

“I don’t understand”, Iceland said and looked around, easily seeing that Sweden and Finland seemed to understand more, “we have already tried all, right?” It didn’t help him to notice how shocked they both looked.

“No, Nor, no”, Finland said, jumping up, “there has to be some other way!”

“I already tried all the other ways and nothing helped”, Norway replied, “don’t worry, I will be one to go. I just need help. I tried to do it myself, but I couldn’t cause damage big enough to kill me. I just healed right away. I need more time.”

“What?” Iceland asked, still confused, “Noregur! What you mean?” Norway avoided to look at his brother and didn’t say anything. At the end it was Sweden who had to explain.

“He wants to wander in death’s hall”, he said, keeping his eyes on the Norwegian who nodded, “to what? Search for Danmark?”

“For answers”, Norway said, “and confirmation. If I find Dan there, then I know he will be re-born and we just have to wait. If I find the witch I can beg her to undo the curse. If I find whatever being rules there, I can ask them to help. Whatever waits there, will help us.”

“There are lot of risks”, Sweden said, “what if you don’t come back.”

“My nation is strong”, Norway replied, “I should come. I did come when I tried to get in myself. There shouldn’t be difference when somebody else does it. The problem was that I couldn’t make it last. That’s why I need help.” He spoke in official tone like he was merely presenting an economical plan that for some reason horrified his audience.

“But Nor…”

“I can’t live like this”, Norway said, “please. I beg you. Help me to die so I can try one last time to solve this all.” There wasn’t any way to give answer for that. So the three nations sat down quietly while the cat that had once been Denmark slept on and Norway waited them to say at least something.

“Finland?” he asked after while, but the Finn shook his head.

“I have killed too many times”, he said, “I can’t add you on that list.”

“I understand”, Norway replied and turned to look at the Swede, “Sverige?”

“Are you sure, Norge?”

“I am”, Norway replied, “I am completely and absolutely sure this is the only possible way to get solution, and that I will be back.”

“How long have you thought about this?”

“Long enough”, Norway said, “Sverige, long time ago you begged the very same favour from me when we thought Finland had died in war.”

“And you refused.”

“You weren’t planning to come back”, the Norwegian said, “but I know you understand how I feel. What if it was Finland?” Sweden glanced at the Finnish man, and nodded slightly.

“Very well”, he said, “I will help you.” For the first time in weeks Norway smiled. It could have been a nice smile but the situation and reason made it look wrong.

“Thank you”, he said. Sweden only nodded and sighed when he got up. Finland gave him a quick pat on shoulder for comfort, that the Swede happily accepted.

“Nore”, Iceland said and jumped up to stop his brother.

“I am sorry, Island”, Norway said, “I..”

“No, it is okay”, Iceland quickly said, “no, I meant, it is not okay. But I also want Dan back, so I know you have to do this and I can’t stop you. I am just going to say that you better come back or I will never forgive you, okay?”

“Okay”, Norway agreed with a nod and Iceland gave him one more stern looks before stepping on side, “very well, shall we go, Sverige?”

“Of course”, Sweden said, “better to get this done quickly.” Finland and Iceland stayed in the living room when Sweden and Norway left. The two Scandinavians walked out to the forest, following an old path until Norway thought they were far enough from the house. There they stood with the trees growing high up and soft moss covering the ground. Sunlight made the forest look magical and in any other situation it would have been a perfect place to sit down and rest for a while.

“Here”, Norway said, “this is good place.”

“How you want this done?” Sweden asked.

“Snap my neck”, Norway replied calmly like he was explaining what he wanted for dinner, “take care that the spine is broken and don’t set it back before two hours has passed. That should give me enough time.”

“One hour.”

“Fine. One hour then”, Norway sighed and turned to stand in front of the Swede, “I am ready.” Sweden nodded solemnly and placed his hands around Norway’s head, holding gently like he meant it for a gesture of affection. Norway closed his eyes and waited. The man’s breath stayed calm and focused, but under his finger’s Sweden felt the heart beating faster. When nothing happened for a while, Norway lifted his arms and hugged the Swede.

“Sve, I know you can do it so I don’t feel any pain”, he said quietly, “you have done this many times before.”

“Never to my own brother”, Sweden replied.

“It is going to be okay”, Norway said and his heart calmed down, “I am sorry I had to ask for you to do this.” Sweden nodded and closed his own eyes.

“Okay.”

“Think it is not me”, Norway said. They took few breaths more, calming down until it was all peaceful. If somebody would have stumbled upon them right then, they would have assumed it was just a couple sharing a tender moment, one gently holding his love’s head and other hugging him dearly. The imagine was shattered just a moment later when Sweden whispered “I am sorry”, and sharply twisted the man’s head. Norway hadn’t lied when he said he knew Sweden would do it painless. It took less than second for the spine to snap broken and Norway to die, so he didn’t feel anything. Sweden however felt the horrifying pain of Norway’s presence disappearing suddenly and leaving emptiness where it had once been. With tears falling from his eyes, the Swede carefully hold the Norwegian’s body and laid it down. He didn’t open his eyes. He had seen many kind of deaths during his long life and he didn’t want to see Norway like that, knowing it was he who had caused it. He only checked with his fingers that the spine in the neck wasn’t connected so that Norway’s body wouldn’t heal right away and bring he back too soon. Then he stood up, stumbled away few meters before he opened his eyes, and went back to house. 


	5. Chapter 5

“It is better if you sit down”, Finland said softly to the Icelander who had started to pace around. He walked across the living room from one wall to other, turned and walked back. He even counted how many times he had done it already, just to keep his mind busy. He was currently at his 23rd round when Finland asked him to sit down.

“I can’t just sit down”, Iceland muttered back, sounding angry and impatient. Once Sweden and Norway had left, the feeling in the room had turned even more solemn.

“It really is…”, Finland started, but was cut off when the pain hit him. He grimaced, holding his hand over his heart when the sudden emptiness appeared where he had once sensed the Norwegian’s presence. It wasn’t the first time he had to feel that, but it had been long time from the last time and no one ever got used for such feeling. He heard Iceland whimpering and looked up to see the younger nation on his knees on the floor. Silently the Finn got up and went to him, wrapping his arms around the shaking shoulders.

“It is just… gone”, Iceland whispered, shocked and terrified. He thought he had heard a cat loudly screaming, but it might have been just his own mind creating the ghost of the killed cats as a manifest to the horror inside of him.

“It will be okay. He will come back”, Finland said and hugged the Icelander tightly, “just focus on me, okay? It will be alright.” Iceland didn’t even care he wasn’t holding up the image of strong, capable and boringly adult nation right then. He wept in the Finn’s arms. Finland wasn’t going to judge him on that. He had wept many times too and he knew better than well that there was nothing wrong with that.

It took awhile but as the pain always does, this one started to fade too although it didn’t went away. They had just managed to somewhat calm down when Sweden stumbled in, tears running down his cheeks and the look of misery on his face.

“Darling”, Finland said when he saw the Swedish man, and he let go of Iceland to reach for the Swede. Iceland didn’t mind that, he wasn’t going to stay anyway. When Sweden more and less fell down on the floor, Iceland got up. He bit his lip to keep his mind clear and make his body obey when it really just wanted to curl up in to corner and give up for a while.

He didn’t need to ask where Norway was. Maybe he just knew his brother so well or was good with guessing or just somehow knew, but he found the Norwegian easily. For distance it looked like Norway had just laid down for a moment, enjoying the silence and nature around him. It was almost beautiful sight, the sun light coming through the trees to create spots of light here and there, the wind humming in high pines and spruces, and the moss almost covering the ground. But when one got closer, it became clear that something was wrong. The Norwegian was too still, not reacting to noises and his chest not moving with breath. The skin was too pale except from the spots where it was darkening to blue-ish colour. His head was in wrong position, way too stretched and tilted to be comfortable or natural.

Iceland sat down in short distance. He didn’t really know what he was supposed to do but it felt right to be there and wait. He sat still and calmly, not really looking at anything and mostly keeping his mind empty. The pain had dulled down and, if he didn’t look at the body laying in small distance, it was easy to imagine that Norway was simply far away. Iceland didn’t really care about the time passing and he only glanced up when he heard something moving closer. His eyes easily found the cat.

“You shouldn’t be out”, Iceland said with a dull tone and the cat stared back at him, “he will be angry if hears you got out.” The cat didn’t seem to care at all and Iceland barely got a disinterested look before the cat focused on Norway. It circled the man, sniffing few times and clearly curious about the situation. Iceland thought he should catch the cat, but he also didn’t want to go nearer the Norwegian. So he sat still and only watched the cat. It poked Norway’s face with a paw few times, tugged the man’s hair and finally settled down to lay on his chest. There the cat only stared Norway for a while and slowly started to purr. Iceland barely even noticed that.

* * *

 

“I see”, Norway muttered in the emptiness, “it worked.” He rarely remembered what happened to him when he died, and neither did anybody else he had talked about it, but there was something very familiar on that pure nothing surrounding him. He knew it should have frightened him, to be floating like that without anything around him and knowing he had died, but still the strongest feeling inside him was comfort. This was natural. Nothing to be afraid of.

“You shouldn’t be here”, a voice said. Norway couldn’t see the speaker nor could he said if they were a female, male or something else. He couldn’t say if they were an adult or child, what language they spoke or what they thought. The only thing he knew was that there was a voice, he knew what it told him, and that the speaker wasn’t too happy with him.

“I am exactly where I want to be”, Norway replied, “are you Hel?” The voice was not amused, Norway just knew that, but slowly a figure of woman appeared in front of him. Half of her looking like a healthy maiden in her best years, other half dead and rotting.

“How curious that it is me you assume to greet you to after-life”, she said, her lips moving but the voice still the same strange one without any emotions, “you poor, ancient soul still desperately holding on old beliefs. Even you don’t believe there is a place for you in Valhalla or Freyja’s meadow?”

“We all need something to believe on”, Norway replied, shrugging off the mocking words, “what comes to other options, I know I didn’t fell in battle. No valkyrie fetched me. Not this time.” The image of Hel grinned, her rotten side turning such human like gesture horrifying.

“I saw you trying”, she said, “you longed to come here, didn’t you? You almost succeeded so many times. I guess you got help at the end. Your kind has never been great with ending their lives by their own hand… Or dying properly.”

“I need answers.”

“There isn’t many here”, the voice replied, “only dead go through here and not many has answers when their time comes. Questions are only they have. That and doubts. Fears. Regret. Misery. Only few comes happy, willingly and satisfied.”

“I need to talk with somebody who has died”, Norway said.

“That is not possible.”

“It should be.”

“It still is not”, the voice said, sounding slightly impatient, “you belong to life, ancient soul. There is no place here for your kind. You might think you are a special, being part of the very few with such extraordinary purpose, but the universe is not going to bend its’ rules for your whims.”

“I need answers”, Norway demanded again, not ready to give up so easily.

“And those shall you not have.”

“Why you are here then?” Norway asked, smirking when he saw the image of Hel shiver like the entity creating it lost the control for a moment, “you don’t need to greet me, but you are still here. You are curious, aren’t you?” The voice was quiet so long that without the old goddess still in front of him, Norway would have assumed it had left.

“I admit”, the voice finally said, “I sensed you coming here so many times, almost reaching over the veil but always pulled back to life despite of trying so many timed. It rather interested me and I wondered what would ever made one of your kind so desperately reaching for something that is forbidden from them?”

“Love”, Norway said simply. A small word as an answer for a great question, but there wasn’t much more he could say. He wasn’t going to lie.

“Ah, of course”, the voice said, “many speaks about it when they come from life.”

“So would you help me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It is not possible”, the voice replied, but it felt like there was something more, “unless…”

“Unless what?”

“How much you want the help?” the voice asked. It was an easy question to answer.

“More than anything”, Norway said without hesitation.

“In that case, you might be interested in trade”, the voice said and Hel’s face turned into something that might have been a smile, “I help you, you help me.”

“How could I help you?” Norway asked and for a moment he felt like the voice was excited. Almost childishly so.

“I only know the death”, it explained, “the life is just something the ones coming here tell stories about. Most often they miss it. I want to feel the life.”

“I don’t know how I can make that possible.”

“It is rather easy”, the voice said, the excitement growing, “you only need to allow me to borrow your body for a little moment.”

“That is all?”

“Yes.”

“But I can not give you my body forever. I need it for myself”, Norway said, but for Denmark he was more than ready to accept any deals the being was offering, “5 minutes.”

“There is no time here.”

“You know heart beats?”

“Those I do know. I often feel the last ones before one comes here.”

“200 heart beats then”, Norway offered, “do we have a deal?” He knew the voice was agreeing, the excitement feeling even clearer.

“We do”, it said and Hel made a strange gesture that might have been what the being thought represented joy, “tell me then, what do you wish to have help with?” Norway explained the situation as fast and simply as he could. He didn’t have too much time to waste, and he was afraid he had already used lot of it. The being listened, without interrupting even once, and when Norway was done it disappeared without a word. The Norwegian was left alone in the nothingless. Even the image of Hel disappeared with the being creating her, and for a while Norway thought their deal had been called off.

But the spirit did come back. First came the feeling of not being alone and suddenly Norway realized he was watching himself. Or something that looked exactly like him, like a reflection on mirror, but living.

“The soul you are looking for is no longer here”, the voice said, and Norway watched himself to speak. The lack of emotions on the images’ face and misuse of expressions terrified him more now that it was him he was looking at. He felt sick, but refused to act for that feeling.

“What you mean?”

“The soul has moved on”, the voice explained shortly, “even if I could catch it now, it will have no memories of what it once was, and so it will not be help for you.”

“I…”

“I am able to offer you some answers, however”, the voice continued, “there is none of your kind here right now nor has anything changed. The one you said is not himself now, is still there in life.”

“But how I get him back into a human shape?” Norway asked, now starting to lose his patience and the already familiar frustration sneaking back in to his voice. Even in death, he felt sick and angry with all that had been going on. He didn’t know how much more his heart could take, if it hadn’t been given up already.

“That I do not know and this is not a place to seek answers for that”, the voice replied, “it is time for you to go back now.” Norway tried to resist, but as soon as the voice had finished speaking, he felt the pull and fell again.


	6. Chapter 6

Iceland looked up and nodded for greeting at the Finnish man who calmly knelt down next to Norway. The cat moved away, carefully staying out of the reach although Finland didn’t even try to catch it. He focused on Norway, carefully inspecting the man’s neck and somehow managing to keep himself calm and focused on his task.

“It has been one hour”, he said, thought Iceland didn’t ask, “Sve was going to do this, but he has already suffered enough for today.”

“What are you doing?” Iceland asked quietly.

“Setting his neck back into right position”, Finland said calmly and like explaining such things was normal for him, “the vertebrae are dislocated and few even broken. By setting them back to how they are supposed to be, we can speed up the healing process and bring him back quite lot earlier than he would do if we just let him be like this. This will not take long. The damage is neatly and effectively done, so I just need to touch a bit and Nor will be back with us.”

“I see”, Iceland muttered and looked away when Finland started to work. It didn’t take long, but the sound of bones moving against each other made him feel sick.

“Sve is still shaken up, so I will go back to him”, the Finn said when he was done, “will you be okay here by yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“You know what to do when he comes back?”

“I know”, Iceland muttered, “they taught me. I have done it once with Dan.”

“Good”, Finland nodded, “here is your phone. Call us if you need help.”

“Okay”, Iceland said and took the offered phone. Finland stood still a moment, clearly wondering something and hesitating because he wasn’t sure what or how he should say what he wanted to say.

“You know”, he finally spoke up in the friendliest and most comforting tone he could, “it happened fast. He didn’t feel anything. It only took time because they were talking first. I am not really comfortable with saying this, but Sve knew exactly what he had to do, and I have seen enough death to recognize a quick one.” Iceland didn’t reply for that quite awkward try to comfort, but he did look up and nodded. Finland might not be the best with talking, but at least he tried his best.

Once the Finn was gone, the cat came back and settled down again to lay on Norway’s chest and purring loudly. Iceland still waited, staying in short distance and keeping the Norwegian on eye. He knew what he should do and although he was worried and scared that he would do wrong, he was still going to do it. He was careful about spotting any small signs that Norway was coming back, but at the end it was the cat who reacted first. Without stopping the purring, the animal reached to lick Norway’s face and gently patted the man’s cheeks and chest with the front paws. Iceland stumbled clouser, kneeling next to the Norwegian and desperately trying to see whatever the cat was seeing. Maybe the skin wasn’t that pale anymore, maybe the chest started to move just a bit and the muscles to switch just slightly like testing if everything still worked.

Iceland held his breath, quickly reminding himself about everything Denmark and Norway had taught him to do in situations like this. It had been many years, but he still remembered how scared he had been when those lessons had become practical once Denmark got hurt enough to die and Iceland had been only one near to help him. He knew every case was different, but he still assumed at least something would be same and he would know what to do. He hoped for that.

Norway opened his eyes suddenly, scaring the Icelander who had expected to see at least something else happening before that.

“Nore?” he asked, the hope sounding in his voice. Norway didn’t reply but he got up to sit so quickly that Iceland almost fell on his back. The cat did fell off the Norwegian and after a short confusion it hissed loudly, the tail moving sharply for anger. Norway didn’t seem to notice. He only looked around like it was the very first time he saw the world, and slowly he took a deep breath, holding it bit too long to be comfortable.

“Nore?” Iceland asked again when the Norwegian still ignored them all, “are you… okay?” Norway slowly turned his head, glaring at the Icelander like he didn’t know who he was looking at. Iceland flinched in front of that look and for a while he felt like he wanted to cry again. He hold himself still and silently reminded that his brother had just came back from the dead. This situation could be perfectly normal. He still felt scared. He didn’t know why.

Norway stared at him a while longer and Iceland hesitated. Something was wrong, his instincts screamed at him, but the more reasonable part of him simply reminded that he couldn’t know if this whole situation was just normal. The screaming part was slowly winning when Norway seemed to not give any sign of recognizing Iceland. He only stared and slowly started to move his lips, clumsily trying to say something. It would have looked hilarious, as it seemed like the man had completely forgot how to speak and how his face worked, but Iceland was too terrified to think anything hilarious right then. His hands were shaking when he reached for the phone and failed to give the right password twice only because his fingers didn’t work right and he was too scared to focus. He really hoped right then that Finland had never left him alone, and he partly wanted to get up and run to the house to get them. Only the fact that he loved his brother deeply and whatever was going on was something Norway needed help with, kept the Iceland from running.

Norway managed to mumble something that for sure wasn’t any clear language or resembled any known words. Iceland finally got the phone unlocked and tried to scroll down the contact list. Why hadn’t he put Finn’s number on speed dial, he wondered and accidentally swiped the screen to take him right back to the start screen. Norway seemed to have given up the try to talk, and he was now attempting to raise his hand to reach for Icelander.

Usually Iceland would have leaned for touch. He would have not even think twice about Norway casually reaching for him. He would have let his brother to be close and, even if he complained sometimes, he wouldn’t really mind. Right then and there however, he leaned away. He knew Norway and Denmark had told him that comfort and being near was important for one returning from death. He knew very well he should hug his brother and do all he could just to make him feel safe and protected in that vulnerable state. But the look on Norway’s eyes was wild, and Iceland was scared. Later he would feel ashamed about that, but in that situation, after all that had happened to him and all that emotional mess and stress, he just couldn’t take it. He fell on his back in hurry to get away from the switching hand reaching for him.

Norway stopped, but there was no look of surprise, confusion or betrayal on his face. Mostly it was nothing and he looked like he had simply given up with trying to control all the small muscles of his face, leaving him to look like he had half of the face paralyzed. He stood still for a moment, hand reached out and the empty eyes staring at Iceland, but then he let a sigh, his eyes rolled over and he fell on the ground.

Iceland stared at him, waiting for something to happen but when the minutes passed and Norway still only laid on the ground, he carefully moved closer. The first thing he realized was that Norway was for sure not dead anymore. His chest was raising with weak breaths and the colour was returning on his face. His body twisted and shook for the muscles once again becoming living, and he whimpered quietly.

“Nore? It is me”, Iceland whispered, ashamed when he heard the fear in his own voice, “it is gonna be okay… I am here.” He pushed the fear on side and reached for his brother, trying to focus only on what he had been taught. The cat, who had stayed away for a while, returned now and started to meow and purr loudly while pushing the Norwegian with his head and patting with paws.

It took a while for Norway to be fully back. When he finally stopped twitching and whimpering for pain, the sun had already started to set. He looked up to the Icelander, his chest moving with heavy breaths and sweat making him look like he had just fell down after a full marathon.

“Island?” he whispered, reaching his hand. This time Iceland wasn’t scared, he was only happy and relieved his brother was back.

“Yeah, I am here” he said and hugged the man tightly. The cat circled them few times and then snuggled between them, purring loudly.

* * *

  
“So it was all in vain?” Finland asked sounding disappointed and worried. Norway had just finished the story of what happened to him when he died. Of course, he had shared slightly altered version and when Iceland told them what had happened when Norway woke up, he simply said it was probably something completely normal. Finland and Sweden even agreed, mentioning briefly how every case they had witnessed had been always different. Norway was good lier, so the whole thing was soon forgotten in favor of more pressing things.

“I don’t think so”, Norway said and pushed the chair to rock back and forth, “I was told Dan is not there. So he has to be here. In the cat.” The said cat was laying on the Norwegian’s lap, perfectly happy and satisfied. Dying seemed to have fixed at least some of Norway’s mental instability, and now he seemed to be completely normal, sitting in the rocking chair and petting the cat on his lap.

“But how we get him back?” Iceland asked.

“I already tried all I could”, Norway murmured, looking out to the distance, “I believe our only solution is to simply wait. All the curses are doomed to break one day.”

“How long that could take?” Norway didn’t say anything and that was enough. Nordics shared looks, each thinking how decades, even centuries without Denmark would feel. None of them looked happy.

“You know what”, Finland finally said after while, his expression stern and determined, “there has to be something we can do.”

“Yes”, Norway said, “we take good care of him and not let him run away so he doesn’t get hurt or even worse, neutered by cat rescue center.”

“No, there has to be more solutions”, Finland said and got up to pace around while he thought the situation.

“Finland, I already told you…”

“Shut up”, Finland ordered shortly and Norway did so. Mostly because he was taken aback by such angry command. He glanced at the Swede who simply raised his finger on his lips. He knew better than well that it was a good idea to listen the Finn.

“Okay so we know it is a curse”, Finland started to speak, somehow managed to walk around and not hit things while keeping his eyes closed, “we know the cat is Dan and we know the curse was triggered because his body’s age reached 25 years.”

“Yes”, Norway said, still sounding annoyed.

“And we know the magic is not going to help us”, Finland muttered, “so we should try something else.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about”, Norway said, but Sweden gestured him to be quiet.

“It is like a fire. It needs certain things to... to be and continue to be”, Finland continued and started to walk faster, “oxygen, burnable material and heat. If you take one away, the fire will die off. So what does a curse need? An object, caster and trigger?”

“I guess…”, Norway muttered but he too started to think.

“Object would be Dan, the caster… Either the witch or magic itself. I guess we should actually say ‘power’ or ‘energy’ instead of caster as the witch is already gone and she was the reason not really something to keep it going. So magic is the energy and trigger is the body’s age. We already tried the magic but can’t take it away. Could we somehow move Dan off the magic? Sounds bit strange… Aim it elsewhere instead of breaking? How about the trigger, if the age is changed…” Norway’s eyes widened when he realized where the Finn was going with his thinking.

“It sounds idiotic”, he said, completely surprised, “but it could work.”

“Could it?” Finland asked while Iceland looked utterly confused and Sweden just patiently waited for the results.

“Yeah”, Norway nodded and frowned then, “our aging is tied on the situation with our land and people so it is not aging as humans do. Therefore, technically saying, if we manage to change the situation so that Dan’s body age changes, the curse will probably broke as it hasn’t been made for that.”

“But it could take decades or centuries for him to gain more age”, Iceland noted, “right? I don’t think any of us has body age over 28 or so. And his nation is already very stable, what we could even do to make the land improve so much so quickly?”

“Maybe not to improve”, Finland muttered, “how about we go to another direction?”

“Make him younger? But that makes no sense. Nobody has ever become younger.”

“Iceland is right”, Norway muttered, “we only age, we don’t get younger no matter what happens.”

“But is it really so?” Finland asked, “maybe the changes are simply so small we never notice them. After all, none of us has any idea of how old our bodies really are. It is just estimations. The whole theory of how we age is just… a theory.”

“Have you ever seen anybody to become a baby after economic crash?” Iceland asked, “if we really get younger, then Prussia should be a toddler right now. He doesn’t have a nation.”

“No, but he had nation and people know about it”, Norway noted, “in theory, that alone could keep him in the body age he reached during his golden age. He is simply doomed to not get any older.”

“So are we going to destroy Dan’s nation to get him back?” Iceland asked, “that doesn’t sound like winning.”

“We don’t need to have him that young”, Sweden spoke up for the first time, “only a day, even few minutes could be enough. The curse will break.” The Nordics shared looks and one by one they nodded. They didn’t have too many things to try and they were willing to test out even something that probably wasn’t going to help at all and was based on bunch of untested theories.

“Well, I guess we are now in mission to cause the downfall of Danish nation”, Norway muttered, “for few days, at least.”

“Ugh, this really sounds stupid”, Iceland muttered and sighed, “okay how we are going to do this.”

“I think there are two possible ways”, Finland said, “first, we kill off at least 60% of Danish population.”

“That is not an option and you should be shamed that you named that as the first one.”

“Yeah, the second is that we cause a big enough economical impact to negatively affect the well being and the situation of the country”, Finland continued.

“Okay, I am quite sure we all agree we try the option number two”, Norway said quickly and everybody nodded, “now then… We need a plan. How do we destroy the Danish economy?”

“A moment”, Sweden said immediately and got up to fetch his laptop. He set it in middle of table and after few minutes of taking very good look on the files, Norway turned to stare at the Swede.

“Do I want to know why you have a completely detailed and up to date plan of how to destroy the Danish economy quickly and efficiently?”

“There is even an easy steps guide for total destruction here”, Iceland muttered, sounding somehow both, amazed and horrified.

“It is a hobby”, Sweden said. The cat stared at him and meowed disapproval.

“Well”, Norway sighed, “I never thought I would say this, but let’s destroy Danmark.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Do you think we are just a little…”, Iceland said and used a moment to think about the right word, “too efficient?”

“What you mean?” Finland asked. 

“Oh, just that”, Iceland said and turned up the newspaper he had been reading, “they are already predicting the total bankrupt to the whole country.”

“Ah, it is nothing”, Finland replied briefly glancing at the screaming headlines and the shocking amount of exclamation marks fitted on the page, “they are just making it sound worse than it is. They always do.”

“Really?”

“Yeah”, Finland nodded, “Sve has a plan and we can trust him. Anyway, aren’t you the one who has survived a bankrupt? You should know how it is.”

“Yes, but my bankrupt wasn’t organized by a bunch of immortal personifications with an agenda”, Iceland replied and focused on reading the article, “and anyway, can we really trust a man whose hobby is to make how to destroy the Danish kingdom plans? Like how long he had been planning this, 30 years? 40?”

“I think he started in 1952 or something”, Finland replied and stopped to cough violently, bending over just to keep himself from falling down. When he got over it, there was blood on his hand. He shrugged and got up to wash his hand, acting like nothing was wrong. They were all sick. The bad thing about all the globalization and shared economies was that when one crashed, they all crashed. Sweden had had also a plan that would have spared them others mostly, but it would have taken years to work. They had all agreed that they were ready to sacrifice some well-being for having faster results. Naturally, they hadn’t asked the rest of the world and were planning to not let them know what was going on.

They had started the mission soon after the plan had been made and it had took till Christmas before they saw the first results. It was a slow work, and required lot of careful planning and secret actions, but finally at the end of the spring it became clear that Denmark was doomed. That had driven the nation into panic, and the Nordic personifications had managed to keep everything as secret only because people had no time to do more than whatever they could to fix the situation and that they believed when Norway told them Denmark had went into coma. It was all almost too easy.

Iceland glanced at the clock, noting that it was his time to do his daily sabotage tour and give updates to Sweden and Norway who were their mission leaders. He folded up the newspaper, drank the rest of his coffee and nodded goodbye to the Finn. 

It wasn’t hard to find the two Scandinavians, or three if the cat was counted, because they spent most of the time in the office they had re-named as a mission room. Sweden was focused on his laptop, undoubtedly carrying out some plan, and Norway sat in the rocking chair with the cat laying on his lap. Once the economy had crashed, the cat had become sick too. They had never been happier about somebody being sick as that meant even in the cat form Denmark was still a personification.

“The situation?” Sweden asked and Iceland focused on him first.

“The bot army is doing fine”, he said, “but I saw some speculations around internet about they thinking that it is a private person who owns the bot army. I think we might have to cancel that mission, and Finland thought so too. Getting too risky, we might be found out.”

“That is fine”, Sweden muttered, “it already did more than expected. We can lay down with the bots and move on.”

“Great”, Iceland nodded and glanced at his papers, “the stocks are still going down or stable with most of the Danish companies. There are few that got positive results. Finland listed some that we should target.”

“Good”, Sweden said and glanced briefly the piece of paper Iceland placed on the table, “the politics?”

“Still in total chaos”, Iceland said, “they believe the government is going to break again. Queen has been giving public speeches to assure the people that everything is under control. Some people are already talking about bankrupt. I think they might declare national emergency soon.”

“Perfect.”

“If you say so”, Iceland rolled his eyes and leaned against the table when he felt the sudden weakness. The world around him was spinning, but luckily he didn’t faint and soon his senses returned to normal. He hated fainting. Yesterday he had done that in stairs and hit his head in process. Sadly, the healing skills were slower during situations like this so Iceland had had a headache for few hours.

“Hey, darling, Germany is calling”, Finland said and peeked in from the door, “pretty sure it is EU stuff again. Do you feel like you want to lie to him and be yelled at?” He was holding the telephone, but instead of ringing there was just a flashing light and a caller ID showing on the screen. They had all muted their phones long time ago so that the constant ringing wouldn’t drive them into madness. Their bosses called them, their assistants called them, other personifications called them as they of course had noticed all the problems came from Denmark and were hoping other Nordics to fix things. Little they knew that the saif Nordics were doing exactly opposite of ‘fixing the problem’.

“I take it”, Sweden grunted and typed few things quickly before getting up. He left the room and Iceland was very happy about that. The bad side of being part of the secret and probably unmoral operation of causing the downfall of a nation and also affecting the global economy in the process, was that there were lot of people yelling at them to do something to fix the situation while they were absolutely not doing that. Iceland hated those phone calls and hoped that nobody would ever find out what they had done. 

“Nore, what you think about the public service sector?” Iceland asked and turned to look at his brother who had been strangely quiet, “Finland is worried that this is going to be too harsh to people.” Norway didn’t reply or reacted at all to the Icelander. He only stared out the window and slowly stroke the cat’s back. 

“Nore?” Iceland called again. When there was no reply, he suddenly remembered that day months ago when Norway had woke up from death, but he had been like… something else than Norway.

“Hey, Nore?” he tried once again and refused to take a step back because being afraid of his own brother was plainly stupid. Norway had always been his protector, not a threat. The cat looked up curiously, still weak with sickness, and hissed quietly at the Norwegian. Iceland thought about leaving and getting Sweden or Finland to come in, but before he started that plan, Norway flinched like he had been woken up. 

“Hey, Is”, he said like Iceland hadn’t been in the room already an half hour, “what is wrong? You look spooked.”

“Nore, are you feeling alright?” Iceland asked and Norway raised his brow like he didn’t really understand the question. The cat had stopped hissing and only meowed softly before settling down to sleep again.

“Of course I am feeling fine”, the Norwegian replied. When compared to the rest of world affected by the very organized economical collapse, Norway was actually doing quite well. Once things went down, the funds his state had collected had been taken in and the nation was doing well with that. He was affected, but not as strongly as others. So far he had only got slight cold now and then, but Iceland assumed it might have been partly because he used his magic to help Denmark to feel better. Sometimes Iceland felt suspiciously good for a while too, so it could be that the Dane wasn’t only one getting magical support. 

“I called your name three times before you replied”, Iceland said worriedly, “and I have been here already long time, are you sure you are okay?”

“Yes”, Norway said, but he did frown, “probably slightly tired. It has been hard times.”

“Yeah”, Iceland said, but Norway’s words didn't’ erase his worries, “so, about the social sector?”

“What about it?” Norway asked and Iceland explained again, “oh well, I guess we have to be careful with that. Danmark will be upset with us if we go too far.” The cat looked up, but seemed to be too tired to do anything more. Norway gently petted him and smiled.

“I will let Fin know.”

“Good”, Norway nodded, “you know. I think this is working. Sometimes it feels like he is more himself, but it comes in phases. I am not sure how much longer we will have to go, but it shouldn’t take too much time.”

“That would be great”, Iceland said, “hopefully we will get him back before the rest of world realizes what we did and decides to kick our asses.” That comment seemed to amuse the Norwegian as he smiled and chucked. 

“Like they would ever be able to do that”, he said, “we are stronger.”

“Ah, so you are still in denial about viking time being over”, Iceland muttered, “it has been thousand years already, welcome to 21st century. Get over it already.” Norway chuckled again and the cat purred softly.

“Let old man to have his dreams and hopes”, the Norwegian said, “and Island?”

“Yeah?”

“How are you doing?” Iceland took a moment before replying, because questions like that from Norway were always a risk to answer. At least Iceland thought so.

“I am fine”, he finally said with a small shrug, “as fine one can be in this situation. I just feel weak now and then, that’s all.”

“I see”, Norway muttered and sighed.

“I got things to do so… See you at dinner?”

“See you there”, Norway nodded and Iceland left. He suddenly felt better, which he assumed to be Norway’s doing. That man just couldn’t stop wasting his energy for stupid spells, Iceland thought and sighed. 

Iceland remembered what his brother had said about Denmark, and started to pay more attention on the cat. Of course, as the Danish nation was harshly hit by their evil plans, the cat was sick and spent most of time doing nothing but laying on Norway’s lap or any sunny spots he could find. But there were moments that Iceland thought maybe Denmark was coming back. Like when he found the cat staring at the computer screen Sweden had left on and clearly judging their plan, or when they were talking about Denmark and the cat looked like reacting to the name. Iceland also noticed that Norway seemed to be the cat’s favorite, but he wasn’t sure if that was because Denmark’s feelings or just the cat liking the Norwegian man.

“Isn’t it strange?” Finland said one day out of nowhere.

“What?” Iceland asked, because as usual, he had no idea what the Finnish man was speaking about. 

“The way how everything is linked together”, Finland said and glanced at the Icelander, “we are simply bringing down one nation, but still half of the world is going with. I think Germany is going to murder us. Or me. Maybe. His phone calls are getting more and more worrying.”

“Yeah, well, yes”, Iceland muttered, “that’s how world works I guess. Are you sure you are going to be murdered?” Finland shrugged and had slightly unnerving expression on his face. Iceland wasn’t sure if it was some kind of strange acceptance or just pure disregard toward the possibility to be murdered. He wondered if Finland too was still denial about Viking times being over, but then he remembered the Finn had never been a viking. He could be in denial about something else though, Iceland thought. 

“I sent him a pack of matches for memorial of Lapland’s war few years back”, he explained, “he is still rather upset with me even when I explained it was just a joke and I didn’t mean it to bring up bad memories. I guess it was too soon. This whole economy crash is not helping.”

“Why you ever…”, Iceland asked, but frowned and shook his head, “sorry, I forgot you are you.”

“I take that as a compliment.”

“Whatever makes you sleep nights better”, Iceland replied, “by the way, have you noticed anything about the cat?”

“You mean like how he is sometimes acting a lot like Dan, but it comes and goes in phases and he seems to be not fully aware of things so he hasn’t yet attempted to communicate with us for real, but rather acts for thoughts, feelings and ideas he uses to have when he is himself?”

“Ah, so you knew already.”

“You are not the only one who speaks with Nor”, Finland replied and smirked, “also, I kinda figured it out that one time he went out and brought a pretty birch leaves to Nor and a dead mouse to Sve.”

“What? I never heard about the mouse”, Iceland said.

“He had hid it into bed, under Sve’s pillow so I am pretty sure he was at least partly aware who he is at that moment”, Finland said, “Sve wanted to fight him, but he happened to be sleeping in Nor’s bed right then and trust me, Sve will not try to bother Nor when he is sleeping. Something about being almost stabbed too many times back in 19th century. I think he has traumas about that time period.”

“I guess”, Iceland muttered, “that sounds like him.”

“Yeah”, Finland said and hesitated a moment before continuing, “Dan is not the only weird thing I have noticed.”

“How so?”

“It is just that sometimes I feel like something is wrong with Nor”, the Finn said and Iceland felt cold. 

“Well, he has had pretty bad time lately since Dan got turned into a cat”, he muttered the excuses he had came up to make himself feel more in ease, “you know, he was pretty mad just a while ago and died and all… that.”

“Yeah I know, but it is…”, Finland hesitated a moment, “different. I did thought first he was just reacting to the collapse we made. It would make sense to be tired and zone out because of that. But I have seen him doing so weird things. Like last week I saw him spending two minutes to switch the lights on and off in kitchen, once he tried to catch water in his hands like that was the most fascinating thing in the world, and yesterday he hugged me.”

“Hugging is not really weird”, Iceland noted.

“No, but Nor usually respects my personal space”, Finland said, “and that hug was very creepy. He didn’t even seem to remember it afterwards.”

“Lot or stress can cause memory loss”, Iceland said and Finland stared at him.

“Just keep him on eye, would you?” he asked, “and tell me or Sve if you notice anything weird. Sve thinks he might have got more sick than he says and we might have to make intervention. Again.”

“Okay”, Iceland said and switched the conversation to the first topic that he knew would take the Finn’s attention on something else, “where is Sví anyway?”

“Upstairs”, Finland said and even looked up to the ceiling like he could see the the man, “he got bad day. Stayed half of the night throwing up and has to stay in bed now.”

“Oh”, Iceland muttered, “not funny.”

“No”, Finland nodded, “but he said we are going to balance the plan soon so we all should feel better in a week or so.”

“What that means?”

“I guess that we are focusing to keep the situation stable instead of getting worse”, Finland replied, “honestly, I am not really sure. This damn sickness it is making me so unfocused, but Sve trusts on his plans and I trust on him, so I don’t have any reason to worry. And speaking of Sve, I should go to check how he is doing.”

“Okay”, Iceland said and didn’t stop the Finnish man from leaving. He really felt like he wanted to be alone a moment and calm down his thoughts. So he walked to the door, intending to go out for a while. He passed the kitchen, noted that his brother seemed to be eating ketchup straight from the bottle at front of open fridge, and decided he would be out a bit longer than for a while. With a sigh he went to toilet, only to be turned away by a loud meow.

“Sorry! I didn’t know you were in there!” Iceland said, frowned and quietly whispered, “what the fuck?” He peeked from the door, staring at the cat who stared back and was sitting on the toilet. Or more he was balancing on the edge and Iceland could only assume he had just done his business.

“Are you… using a toilet?” he asked and the cat meaowed before jumping down, “uh, I guess this explains why the sandbox has been so clean few past weeks without any of us really fighting about who should clean it.” The cat walked to him and spent a moment to rub against his legs. Iceland knew very well that Norway was okay with petting the cat and he had seen Sweden few times either awkwardly patting the cat’s head or just carrying him, but Iceland himself just felt it was too weird. The cat was still Denmark. 

“Are you…” he asked and thought a moment, “can you understand me? Right now? Dan? Blink if you are there?” The cat stared at him, carefully not blinking at all and only meaowing softly once. 

“I am not sure if you are just joking right now or actually didn’t understand”, the Icelander muttered and sighed, “I am going out. You wanna come with?” He didn’t bother with waiting for the cat to answer, but just walked to the door to get his jacket and shoes on. It was quite cold outside, not too cold but cold enough that it was smart to dress up a bit, and the day was already turning into evening. 

Iceland was slightly surprised when he saw that the cat had followed him. Usually he stayed with Norway and even then was more eager to lay down on sunny spot than go out for a hike. He reached to pick up the small harness Norway had bought. They had all felt bad about it, but risking to lose the Dane turned into cat was not tempting and they didn’t want to lock him inside either. 

“I know you don’t like this, but rules are the rules”, Iceland said, “you are not to be outside without supervising and harness. Trust me, I don’t like that either.” The cat meowed, but let the Icelander to get the harness on. There was even a small bell attached, but it didn’t make any sound so Iceland assumed it was either a fake or somebody had already got tired of it and broke the bell.

The cat walked next to him, easily keeping up a space and not even slightly confused when Iceland walked into the forest. There were lot of trails there, some made by animals some by other creatures. Iceland didn’t really plan his route and more and less randomly picked whatever direction every time the trail separated into few. 

“It is so hard, you know”, he muttered out loud after a while, “you are a cat, Sví is leading the destruction plan that apparently has been his hobby since 50s, Finland is mostly being himself so I am not sure if that helps at all, and something is wrong with Nore.” 

“Meow.”

“You have noticed it too, right?” Iceland asked and glanced at the cat who seemed to nod, or it was just random movement of head, “I don’t really know what to do.” He climbed up to sit on the big rock. The legends said that such rocks, found all around the forest, were the ones giants or trolls had thrown. Nowadays the common explanation was the ice age, but deep inside Iceland still wanted to believe on the old stories. The world felt sometimes more interesting that way.

“I think I am tired”, he said and the cat settled to sit next to him, “of course I am also weak for all those things we have pulled this year, but you know, I am just so tired. I want things to be okay again, and not like… this. This mess. What am I supposed to do? What can I even do? I…” Iceland sighed deeply and leaned his chin on his hands. He was exhausted and now that he had said it out loud, he felt it better. All the stress, fear and sickness he had felt during the year. Norway dying, Denmark turned into cat. It all was becoming too much. 

The cat placed his paw on Icelander’s tight, looking straight to him. Iceland looked back, briefly wondering if the cat’s eyes had been blue all the time.

“I miss you, Dan”, he said, “can you hurry up and turn back normal?”

“Mja.”

 

A loud crash in middle of night brought them all up from their beds. Iceland could hear somebody, he assumed it to be Sweden from the sound of steps, to get up to check what had happened so he didn’t bother to follow. Whatever it was, the Swede could deal with it by himself. Iceland was still feeling bad, even after the walk he had done earlier, and staying in bed sounded like a good idea. Still, he didn’t get any sleep because soon he heard muffled voices speaking and Finland’s slightly lighter steps going into kitchen. Iceland frowned and decided to go to investigate anyway. 

He had just got out of his room when he saw Finland returning. The man was smiling despite of the grogginess of one being woken up suddenly in middle of night.

“He is back”, the Finn said hurriedly and looked like he was ready to cry for joy. 

“What?” Iceland said before the sleepy fog in his mind let him register the words, “Dan?”

“Yeah”, Finland nodded and Iceland ran. He didn’t stop until he saw the confused and naked Danish man on the kitchen floor. Sweden was there too, kneeling down next to Dane and murmuring softly while helping him to sit up. Denmark looked utterly lost, replying to the Swede with questioning tone in his voice. 

“Danmark?” Iceland asked and the Dane glanced at him, smiling and saying few words. Iceland was having too many feelings inside of him to think how he should have replied, so he let Sweden to do the talking.He heard Denmark asking questions and Sweden giving him answers in calming and soft tone, so it seemed like everything was under control and well. 

“I don’t understand what they are saying”, Finland whispered next to the Icelander.

“It is Old Norse”, Iceland replied, though he assumed the Finn had guessed that, “he is confused and having problems with remembering what has happened, but he recognized us all. He is asking after Norway. Sví is explaining things. I don’t know, why they don’t speak modern language?”

“I have heard that sometimes when having traumas or getting old or sick people start to speak the first language they learnt even if they spoke other one daily before that”, Finland noted, “Old Norse is his first one, right?”

“Yeah”, Iceland said and frowned, “where is Nore?”

“I don’t know”, Finland said and looked worried, “he wasn’t in his room.” Despite of the happiness of having the Dane back, the Finn’s words caused a cold feeling of fear inside Iceland. He felt like their problems were not all solved and right then he was scared.


	8. Chapter 8

Norway stood at the kitchen door. He had leaves and sticks knotted in his messy hair and his clothes were muddy and wrinkled like he had been rolling around on ground for the whole night. He looked tired with his pale skin and dark circles around his eyes, and he swayed slightly like he was having problems with holding his balance or simply he was just too tired. He didn’t seem to care about that all or how he was stared at. He only showed signs of life when he was Denmark, who had got some clothes on and was seated on kitchen chair.

Norway stopped. Just staring at the man like he wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or not. He leaned against the wall for balance, keeping his eyes on the Dane the whole time. The clock on the wall had time to tick few times before anything happened.

“Danmark?” Norway asked softly and carefully, like fearing that all he was seeing would disappear once he reacted for it. The Dane smiled, reached his hands toward the Norwegian, and said few words that made Norway finally broke out of the whatever spell or emotion had been holding him. He let a muffled sound and went to the Dane, sitting down on his lap and hugging tightly for once not caring that they had audience. They exchanged whispered words in the old language, and Sweden tactically moved away to give them more space.

“What are they saying?” Finland asked, curious enough to want know about things that were not really meant for him.

“I am not telling”, Iceland replied and got a disappointed look from the Finn. That still didn’t make him to translate, so Finland glanced at the Swede.

“I will tell later”, Sweden promised and got a smile from the Finn. Iceland rolled his eyes and politely focused on something else until Norway and Denmark were done with greetings.

“He is completely fine”, Norway said switching to modern speech for Finland’s sake, “just tired, confused and shaken up, but he is fine. There is no even trace of the curse left.” He continued in older language, speaking to the Dane who replied with short words and smile even if they all could see he was barely holding up.

“I think he might want to go to bed”, Iceland muttered and glanced at the clock to see it was way too early for him to be up, “and I want that too.”

“Back to sleep”, Sweden agreed and patted the Dane’s shoulder to show some support. Norway seemed to not be ready to let go, even if he had already finished checking that Denmark was real and fine. Denmark too seemed to be fully willing to stay and have all that attention and care from the Norwegian. He was sleepily murmuring something and picking up the leaves and sticks from Norway’s hair. The Dane’s return had took all the attention and nobody seemed to really focus on the mystery of where the Norwegian had been so long time in middle of night and no questions were asked from him.

For the next few days Denmark was the middle of everything. He didn’t need to do anything as his every need was taken care of. They made his favorite meals and brought them to him. Took care he was comfortable all the time and gently explained all that had happened and helped him to get a hold of situation again. All the cat related things like the litter box, harness and the catnip Sweden had bought as a joke after one stressful day, it had cheered him up to watch the Dane getting high, were cleaned up and quietly made to disappear.

“I don’t really remember much”, Denmark said, starting to explain what had happened in his point of view, “it is mostly just foggy glimpses… I guess I wasn’t really aware of myself most of the time.”

“That makes sense”, Norway nodded, “you didn’t attempt to communicate with us even once.”

“And you attacked Nore and Sví”, Iceland added and frowned, “I guess with Sví it wasn’t that un-normal.”

“Hm.”

“I am not going to turn back into cat, right?” the Dane asked worriedly. He had already been told what they had done to get him back and, even if he wasn’t too happy of the risks his family had took for him, he was grateful they hadn’t just leave him. He had cried when they had told about it all.

“No, you are fine”, Norway replied, “the curse was triggered already once and it can not happen again even if you get older so we don’t need to start to monitor your nation’s improving. The spell has been broken and it is like it never was..”

“Oh, that’s good”, Denmark smiled and nodded, “I missed you all.”

“You just told us you didn’t even knew you were you, how could you have missed us?” Iceland asked. He was seated on Dane’s left side on the couch and was casually leaning against him. Norway was on the other side, and Sweden and Finland had settled down on armchairs.

“But I did miss you!” Denmark insisted, “and I lost a year of my life.”

“Dan, that is less than a percent of your whole life span.”

“Can’t you guys just let me mourn my lost year in peace?” Denmark asked, clearly enjoying the moment. Once he had been turned back, they have launched the recovery program to get everything back in order. It had been a delight surprise that Sweden turned out to be just as good with making recovery plans as he was planning the downfall of the Danish nation. Just in a month they started to see results and the media was promptly calling the recovery a miracle. All the fame and thanks were given to Danish government, that gladly and quite confusedly accepted it. Most of people took a breath and continued their life. Only few thought there had been something strange going on, but as usual, the conspiracy theories didn’t made it very far.

Some of the things that had happened during a year clearly terrified and scared the Dane. He wasn’t very comfortable about the whole cat thing, and when he learnt how far Norway had went just to get information beyond the death, he took the man’s hand and made him swore he would never do that again. He even seemed to feel sympathy toward Sweden for being asked to kill the Norwegian, and kept asking for few days if he was really feeling okay.

The plan they had pulled to destroy Denmark’s state didn’t upset him as much. He simply shrugged, accepted it had been necessary, and told them he actually had his own destroy Sweden plan. When asked details, he whisked up his wallet and showed them a piece of paper that he kept folded up in one of the bill slots. It was bit of yellowish colour after all time passed and said with ink letters “Take a sturdy stick and beat Sweden up until he surrenders. Repeat if needed!”. His plan was criticized to be too simple and lacked few elements such as how he was expected to find a sturdy stick, which kind of stick was actually sturdy enough, and if he really thought Swede would just kindly stood still and take the beating. The conversation developed from there into a hour long debate of which kind of tree would be most ideal for such task. They finally agreed on a trunk of young spruce because Sweden noted he didn’t like the needles sticking him and there was a big chance of resin staining his clothes and making them sticky, although Finland kept swearing on birch. He refused to change his mind even when others reminded him he regularly beat up the Swede with birch and it didn’t hurt much. They were not sure why he kept talking about child abuse.

Because the problems were solved, the personifications had to return to their work. Still, luckily the modern solutions allowed them to do their work almost from anywhere, and Iceland soon realized he probably wasn’t the only one who thought something was still very wrong because he wasn’t the only one who returned to Norway’s house with the hasty “I want to spend time with family” excuse told to his boss and assistants. In fact, they all simply made a quick check in visit in their lands and then they were back.

“What are you doing here?” Norway of course asked when he saw his family members wandering back in after merely few hours they had left. Sweden and Denmark had barely turned around in their countries and were back almost right away, but Finland and Iceland had to use bit more time before they managed to be back. Still, even them showed up in less than 24 hours.

“Oh, I just forgot my heart here and had to come to pick it up”, Denmark said with a wink and wide grin. Norway rolled his eyes, but let the Dane come in.

“Broke my oven”, Sweden offered as an excuse, “can’t be home before it is fixed.”

“Can’t you just eat takeaway?” Norway had asked, “it can take that long to fix an oven.”

“No”, Sweden said simply and was waved in by the Dane, so Norway had to let him in.

“Why the hell you think I am here? Sve is fucking here, you dimwit”, said Finland, who had had rather stressful day and was too tired after all the traveling to listen questions he deemed to be useless. Norway raised his brow for that, but because Denmark and Sweden were already having something that looked like a tea party in his living room, he let the Finn come in.

Iceland didn’t give Norway any reply. He didn’t need to because the Norwegian knew better than just ask why Iceland did something. He should simply be happy and accept the facts. Actually, he didn’t even ask Iceland why he was back so quick after leaving.

Few days later Iceland wondered why nobody was addressing the huge elephant in the room. It was like they were all just desperately talking about anything else than Norway’s strange behaviour that still continued, but it was also clear that they were all aware of it. Iceland did wonder if he should take a lead, but he also liked to let the Dane to fix the problems. Especially the ones that were in any way related to Norway. The Dane was even his normal self again, so Iceland sat down and waited.

He didn’t need to wait for too long, because just after few days Denmark showed up in his room just a moment after he had fell asleep. Usually he would have give the Dane few selected words for waking him up like that, but he knew what was going on so he just accepted for being dragged away.

“So you guys probably wonder why I have gathered you all here tonight”, Denmark said when they were all sitting in the old, empty stable building Norway had near his house. Once it had been important for housing the horses and other animals needed for surviving but in modern world it didn’t really have meaning anymore so it was just old, empty and apparently perfect place for secrets meetings.

“No”, Finland shook his head, “not really.”

“It is about Norge”, Sweden muttered.

“How you know?”

“Because he is the only one who is not here”, the Swede replied, “and we are not idiots.”

“Yeah, we actually noticed things while you were a cat.”

“Oh well, then I don’t need to explain that much”, Denmark said and jumped straight into the topic, “so as you have probably noticed, something is wrong with Nor.” They all nodded.

“I thought it was just stress and, you know, missing you”, Finland said with a frown, “but it has been already weeks since you turned back and our nations are doing quite well now too, so it has to be something else.” That was true. Denmark had recovered from his cat year incredibly well and the only trace left was that he sometimes saw weird dreams where he was still a cat, and nobody had so far realized what had really caused the weird, sudden and critical although also very brief collapse of Danish nation.

“Yeah it is something else”, Denmark said, “I think he is possessed.” His statement was followed by deep, confused silence.

“What?”

“He is possessed”, Denmark repeated, “you know, somebody is in him and controlling his body.” Others looked still confused so the Dane repeated “possessed” with few other languages just in case.

“We know what that means”, Iceland muttered, “but Nore? Possessed? He is not that stupid. There is no way something could just take over his body like that.”

“We assumed he had been just sick and didn’t want us to know”, Finland noted and shared a look with Sweden. They had been clearly discussing about Norway together.

“He does that often”, Sweden added and that wasn’t a lie. The Norwegian was known for hiding his weakness and it wasn’t the first time they had to get worried about him.

“No, it is not that”, Denmark said, “he is possessed.”

“Okay”, Finland said with the tone he used when he really didn’t believe, but was going to give his conversation partner a chance to prove anyway, “and why you think he is possessed?”

“I have seen it”, Denmark claimed.

“No offence, but you have been a human only about a month after a year of being a cat, are you sure you are not just having some kind of concussions?” Finland asked, “it would make sense that he is just really sick and trying to hide it from us.”

“No, no, I know what I am talking about”, Denmark said, “you see, I lied a bit. I actually remember quite lot from my cat time. Which reminds me, fuck you Sve.”

“I wasn’t the idiot that got turned into a cat”, Sweden said calmly.

“Bringing in a laser pen was a new low even for you.”

“Nobody told you to chase after the red dot”, the Swede said with a hint of smug in his voice. The year has been harsh for them all, but there had been some funny moments. For Sweden, at least.

“I am gonna make you to have an accident”, Denmark promised and moved on, “but first the more important things. So while I was a cat I saw from very close what was going on. He is definitely possessed.”

“He is a Norwegian, he is naturally bit on weird side.”

“No, I know what I saw”, Denmark said, “he is possessed. We have to help him.” Finland and Sweden shared looks that clearly told they were seriously wondering if the Dane too had problems they needed to help him with. It wasn’t that they didn’t believe it was possible to be possessed, they had seen lot of strange things happening during their life, but it was just that they couldn’t even imagine Norway being the one possessed. The Norwegian was too good, skillful and clever to get into that position.

“I think Dan is right”, Iceland muttered, speaking for the first time since Denmark had stated his opinion. While Sweden and Finland doubted, the Icelander had fell quiet and remembered the fear he had felt. He had tried to excuse it all with just being too worried or something, but once Denmark had spoken, he had started to think again.

“In that case…”

“My brother is possessed”, Iceland said with shocked voice when the he fully realized and accepted the truth. Denmark was quick to hug him and offer all the comfort he just could.

“Don’t worry”, he said, “we are gonna fix this.”

“And this better be the last family problem we have in this decade”, Finland muttered, “okay, anybody got any plans?”


	9. Chapter 9

Denmark’s plans were always simple and efficient, Iceland thought when they were eating breakfast next morning. If Norway wondered why everybody of his family looked like they haven’t slept at all during the night, he didn’t ask. There was a big chance that he actually knew already. He tended to know lot of things that he wasn’t supposed to know, and the lack of Danish man in his bed should have alerted him anyway. Still, he didn’t say anything and seemed to be completely unaware of the critical looks he was getting. They all tried to act normal, but there was just something very unsettling in knowing that one’s family member was possessed by something unknown that could be in control that very moment. They were all keeping the Norwegian on eye, trying to notice any hints of something being wrong.

Simple and efficient plan, Iceland thought and moved his thoughts back to his task. Denmark liked easy plans that were fast to carry out and fast to replace if something went wrong. He didn’t make complicate plays with hundreds possible back ups like Norway did. He only came up with a plan which either worked or not. If it worked, he was happy. If it didn’t work, then he just came up with new one. Iceland kind of liked the Dane’s plans more than Norway’s. At least with Denmark he could be always sure nobody was going to die during it. Nobody he cared about, at least.

“Nor never lies to you”, the Dane had said during their secret meeting, “and that is gonna be your task. You gotta get the truth out of him.”

“Why?”, Iceland had asked, “and what truth? We already know he is possessed. You said you know.”

“Yeah, but we gotta find out what exactly it is”, the Dane said, “and I am pretty sure Nor actually knows more than he shows. He just doesn’t wanna tell us. So it is your duty to get information.”

“Okay.”

“Just do it secretly. Don’t let the spooky thing to know we are after it.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Iceland did remember what they had spoke during night. He just didn’t know how exactly he was going to get information out of the Norwegian without really asking for it. He really didn’t want to mess up and the responsibility of his brother weighted him heavily. Iceland wondered how ever Norway had been able to take that responsibility over him for all those centuries. It really made one anxious to know that somebody else’s well-being was up to them. What would he do if he messed up and Norway would end up hurt?

“That is why I let Dan to handle the problems”, he muttered quietly to himself and stuffed more porridge in his mouth. Norway looked up, giving him a questioning glance but luckily not asking anything. Sweden and Finland were reading the newspaper and pretending they were not paying attention, but Denmark gave the Icelander reassuring smile. So Iceland sighed and tried.

“Nore?”

“Yes?” Norway said and lowered the spoon he had been going to put in his mouth.

“I was just wondering”, Iceland said, “the night Dan came back… Where were you?”

“I do not know.”

“I meant, you were not here and it was middle of night so where were you?” Iceland asked again.

“And I meant, I do not know”, Norway replied calmly and with slightly irritated expression.

“You don’t know where you were?”

“That is what I said”, Norway muttered. Sweden and Finland were still pretending they were not even in the room, but Denmark nodded behind Norway and gestured the Icelander to keep going.

“Nore, are you okay?” Iceland asked. The Norwegian sighed and looked around, clearly giving disapproving looks at everybody.

“I don’t know what kind of scheme you are building up”, he said, addressing his words for all of them, “but there is no need for that. I have everything under control.”

“But Nore, you just said you don’t even remember where you were that night!” Iceland said, “that is not…”

“I said”, Norway used stronger tone and glared at his family, “I have everything under control.”

“But….”

“No”, the Norwegian stood up, “I know what I am doing. I don’t need you stumbling around and messing up everything.” Iceland frowned, but despite of Norway’s angry reaction he wasn’t afraid. He knew now what was going on and he was sure his brother was simply being his stupid and stubborn self. Of course Norway just had to try to be his own hero and not tell anybody he was being possessed. Iceland sighed, but the Norwegian just glared them all and angrily picked up his breakfast to put it away.

Iceland gave others an apologizing look. Denmark had told him to be careful and not raise suspicious, but what he had done? He had straight away accused Norway for not telling the truth and revealed that they knew something was going on. Still, Denmark showed him thumb up when Norway was leaving the room.

“Good job”, he whispered, “we gonna caught this possessing bastard soon.”

“Uh, Nor?” Finland asked before Iceland had time to whisper anything back, and right then all the attention was back on the Norwegian. He was standing next to kitchen counter. where he had left his bowl, and just stared at the sink. The angry and annoyed acting was all gone and he had stopped so suddenly Iceland wouldn’t have even noticed he was still there if Finland hadn’t spoke up.

He had picked up a knife from the counter, holding it weirdly from the end of the blade instead of handle. The Norwegian didn’t seem to care about being stared at or the argument they just had. He only held the knife and turned to look at the them. His eyes made the Icelander feel fear once again and he knew it was not his brother he saw.

“Nor, are you alright?” Denmark said and got up. He spoke like he always did, but looked careful when he walked to Norway. Iceland thought for a moment that the Dane was simply worried about Norway’s weird behaviour, but Sweden knew better and was quick to get up in case Denmark would need back up. He had been in fight with the Dane enough times to recognize that he was approaching Norway as he would approach an enemy he didn’t know.

Norway, or whatever was controlling his body, looked at the Dane calmly and emotionless. He didn’t seem to care that Sweden was moving to stand behind him or that Finland was creeping closer on other side. He just stared at Denmark until the Dane was just an arm’s reach away. Then he finally moved, almost falling forward and into Denmark’s arms. The Dane hesitated just a moment with backing away and that moment was too long. Norway grabbed his head and pushed their lips together for a clumsy kiss.

Denmark was stunned for a moment, but he got over it and pushed Norway away. With one hand around the man’s neck and other tightly holding the knife wielding hand, the Dane pushed him against the kitchen wall.

“Who are you?” he asked, his voice rough from anger. The being met that with calmness.

“I have the right to be here”, it said. Iceland remembered what he had witnessed when he first time saw the possession, although then he didn’t know what it was, but it seemed like the thing had learnt to speak since that because it wasn’t struggling at all. Just thinking that everything had been going on long enough for that, made the Icelander feel sick.

“Who are you?” Denmark asked again, tightening his hold on the man’s neck.

“You wouldn’t hurt this body”, the thing hissed back and struggled to draw a breath.

“Answer my question”, the Dane said without any hesitation, “or you might notice you are wrong.” He was speaking strongly, sounding dead serious and right then Iceland felt like Denmark could really hurt Norway if it meant the thing possessing him would disappear. He moved closer, carefully staying behind other three in case they needed to do something. Iceland knew he wasn’t much for fighter so he gladly allowed others to do that, but he also wanted to see what was going on.

“I don’t have a name”, the thing said, starting to sound angrier.

“What are you then?”

“I am one of those who greet the ones coming from life”, it said, “it is my duty to guide them.”

“So you are some kind of underworld gatekeeper?”

“If you want to think so”, it said, “I have been called with many names and had many appearances.”

“Tytti?” Finland asked out loud and frowned.

“Yes, that is one of the many names I have been called with”, it replied, “the ferry woman. I apologize my current position doesn’t allow to create the correct image for you.”

“What are you doing here?” Denmark continued the questioning, “shouldn’t you be guiding the death then?”

“I am here because we made a deal”, the thing said, “he promised me 200 heart beats in living world for information and help.”  
“Norge would never be so foolish that he makes deals like that”, Denmark said.

“But so he was”, the thing replied, “I assume he was desperate to save somebody he holds dear and didn’t care how much that would cost. After all, he did come to death just for that.” The Dane flinched slightly, but kept his hold and angrily glared at the thing.

“But why are you still here?” Finland asked, “200 heart beats would be just few minutes. Unless there is more than you possessing him, you have been here much longer than that.”

“He cheated me”, the being said angrily and looked sour, “he didn’t tell me the heart does not follow the same rhythm constantly. It was too fast. I barely had time to notice anything when I was already forced to retreat!”

“Who cares”, Denmark said, “get out of his body now or I will kill you.”

“You can’t kill me”, it said back, “and it was not me who decided to cheat the deal.”

“I can kill whoever I want”, the Dane snarled, “not even gods are save from me!”

“Dan, wait!” Iceland said when it looked like the Dane was really going to prove his words right there and then. He glanced at the Icelander, impatiently waiting for the reason why he should not attempt to murder a being from death.

“What?” he asked.

“Just wait a moment”, Iceland said and took a breath before continuing, “she… they, I guess, said they made a deal with Nore and was cheated.”

“But if the deal only said 200 heart beats, then it wasn’t cheating”, Finland noted, “technically.”

“But technically it was”, Iceland continued, “they didn’t know how hearts work and Nore didn’t tell them.”

“Why are you even helping this thing!” Denmark asked.

“Because you can’t just beat the shit out of them!”

“Yes I can!”

“Not without making big damage on Nore’s body and probably messing up something”, Iceland said and hold up his hands, “I am just trying to suggest different solution here. Something that might work better.”

“Oh right, you mean we get Nor to spell the thing away?”

“No”, Iceland sighed, “I am pretty sure he would have done that already if he could. I meant we could talk about this.”

“I agree”, the being said, still being hold against the wall.

“You shut up”, the Dane muttered to it and looked back at the Icelander, “you mean we are going to sit down and have a meeting about this?”

“Why not?” Iceland asked, “they are willing to talk.”

“I…”

“I vote for Island’s idea”, Finland said quickly, “he is right. I wouldn’t hesitate to test my skills against any gods or underworld beings if that was the only way, but if we can solve this by speaking that would be great.”

“You too?” Denmark said impatiently, “Sve?”

“Talk first, kill then if that doesn’t work”, the Swede nodded, “you know Norge and his deals. It can be possible, it probably is so, that he intentionally cheated by not letting them know about how heart really works. Then it is in their rights to seek for justice.” Denmark hesitated for a while longer, but under pressure he loosened his hold on Norway’s body and stepped away.

“Fine”, he said, “we do this like that then. But don’t you think I wouldn’t kill you. You do one mistake and I send you straight back to the death, understood?”

“Completely”, the being said and touched the bruised neck, “pain. What an interesting feeling.” Denmark cursed and walked away, settling to glare at the possessed Norwegian from short distance. He looked like he was ready to get his original plan going on at any moment. Finland and Sweden stood still, keeping guard but not really attempting to do anything while Norway continued being possessed. It took a moment of Iceland to realize that all the mission leading had just been thrown at him. More responsibility of his brother’s fate was the last thing he wanted and briefly he thought if he should have just let the Dane do what he wanted.

“Uh”, he said and tried his best to look like he knew what he was going, “I think first we should hear more… um… Why did you possess Nore?”

“I was curious”, the thing replied, “I have always been on other side. I wanted to experience the life. You can’t blame me for taking the chance when it arrived.”

“I guess”, Iceland shrugged, “so, he cheated you.”

“Yes.”

“I can’t say that doesn’t sound like him”, Iceland muttered, “he is pretty good with going around the rules without really breaking them. I understand that you are upset.” The being observed him and Iceland did his best to not think they as Norway. The body was same, but the mind in control wasn’t and it was quite creepy realization.

“You sound a lot like him”, it commented.

“I hear that a lot”, Iceland shrugged, “but you are willing to talk, right? Because otherwise…”

“You get killed”, Denmark filled in. The being looked at the Dane briefly and nodded.

“I want to talk.”

“So, what you want?” Iceland asked, “you can’t keep possessing my brother forever.”

“I simply want to enjoy the life”, the being said, “all these… feelings and things. There are so many marvelous things here in life I want to experience. I simply want the time he should have given to me.”

“I think you already got it”, Finland noted, “you have been here almost a year.”

“He was the one who cheated first”, the being said calmly.

“Just let me kill that thing”, Denmark muttered.

“Can we make a deal with you?” Iceland said, ignoring the Dane for once, “we give you compensation and you leave Nore alone.”

“I do not wish to make more deals with his kind.”

“Well, there isn’t really much choices for you”, Iceland noted and gestured toward the rest of Nordics. He didn’t need to look at them to know they were giving the being their best and scariest looks.

“Very well, I can see you are his relative”, it said with a sigh, “there is something he seems be feeling strongly for, but so far I haven’t been able to experience it. If you give that to me, I will leave.”

“What kind of thing you are talking about?”

“It is very strong feeling”, the being said, sounding fascinated even when they just talked about it, “I have experienced fear, excitement, hunger, thirst and pain, but this one is… it is warm. It feels good. It seems like he enjoys it rather much, even more than the things that are necessary. It is like an addiction.”

“Is that why you tried to kiss Dan?” Finland asked.  
“Yes. I do not know what he is thinking, but his body reacts differently in different things, and that is what it wanted to do”, the being said and glanced at the Dane with wondering look, “there is lot this body wants to…”

“I am not going to have s…”

“I am sure we can come up with an agreement”, Iceland said quickly, cutting off the Dane before they got too deeply in topic he didn’t care to go.

“What you suggest then?”

“How about we help you to experience things… like…”, Iceland looked around for help and luckily Finland was right there.

“We could show you things we love”, he said.

“Love?”

“That is probably the feeling you talked about”, the Finn said, “right?”

“Could have been lust too if it was about Dan”, Sweden muttered and Finland pushed him with his shoulder. The being seemed to be still suspicious, but he also looked interested.

“What that scary looking man said?”

“Absolutely nothing”, Iceland quickly said, “it is definitely love you thought about.”

“And how exactly you can make that?” the being asked, “what is this love? I do not want to be cheated again.”

“It is very complicate thing”, Iceland said and hoped everybody in his family would have some sense to not make fun of him later, “how about we give you a day to experience things we like and after that day you leave.”

“The day is time from sun’s rise to another rise?”

“Correct.”

“And you promise to show me everything you like during that time?”

“Yes”, Iceland nodded, “if you promise to leave Nore alone and ever come back.” The being thought about that a moment, but finally it nodded.

“Very well”, it said, “I accept the deal.”

“Great”, Iceland said, “now, I have something to tell my brother. Could you let him come back and we can meet again when sun rises?”

“I agree on that”, the being said, “but remember, I will be close by all the time. Do not try to cheat me.”

“Same for you”, Denmark muttered, still sounding disappointed that they had talked instead of more brutal and direct action, “one mistake and you are dead.”

“Very well”, the being said with a nod and looking straight at the Icelander, “we will meet when sun rises.” There was barely any sign of the possession ending. Norway’s body simply swayed slightly like he was being light headed, and then there he was. He frowned, looking the men surrounding him and clearly confused for a while before the situation hit him.

“Ah, shit”, he muttered, “I guess you want me to explain myself.”

“That would be really nice”, Iceland nodded and took a deep breath before continuing with angry tone, “you have been possessed this whole time and you didn’t tell us? What the hell you thought you were doing? Making deals with mysterious beings in afterlife and then just cheating them?”

“Technically it was not…”

“Shut up, I am not done with you!” Iceland cut him off, “I was scared! I thought you are dying or something!”

“I…”

“First Dan gets turned into cat for a year! And then you got crazy and died and we all had to bankrupt half of the world! And now you are being possessed because you just had to try to cheat in deal!” Iceland yelled and crossed his arms, “I am tired of this bullshit!” Norway lowered his head and looked ashamed, which wasn’t normal expression for him.

“I apologize, I…”

“I don’t care!” Iceland continued, “now I had to make a deal with them just to get you back to normal.”

“You did what?”

“I made a deal too!

“Take it back! Now!”

“I am an adult, Nore, and handling these things much better than you are!”

“But I am your older brother and you should do as I say!”

“That is bullshit!”

“Watch your tongue when you talk to me!”

“Wow, at the moment like this you really notice that they are brothers, right?” Denmark said, looking at the two other Nordics who had done the wise thing and retreat to save distance. Finland and Sweden rarely had the joy to witness Norway and Iceland’s brotherly fights in full power, so they were quite confused, shocked and just a bit worried. Denmark however already knew the drill. He just did like he always did which meant he stayed away and let the brothers to get over their things by themselves. It took about five minutes until the yelling just ended suddenly and Norway and Iceland glared at each other quietly.

“Okay hey now that you got that tension out”, Denmark said and stepped in then, “how about we talk a bit about tomorrow? I guess we have things to plan now that you didn’t let me to murder that thing.”


End file.
